All right, please turn in your Bibles to Titus, the book of Titus. Paul's letters are arranged pretty much in order of length, and so it is almost before Hebrews, and only Philemon is less in length. Chandler, is this gonna be recorded? Thank you. So I'm gonna read the book, because it's not that long, and then I'll pray and seek the Lord's guidance on what we present tonight. So, Paul, a servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness. in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began, and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior, to Titus, my true child in a common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery and insubordination. For an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. 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 contradicted. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what ought not to be taught. One of them, one of the Cretans, a prophet of their own said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply so that they may be sound in faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God. but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in behavior, not slanders or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled, Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works and in your teaching show integrity, dignity and sound speech that cannot be condemned. So that an opponent may be put to shame having nothing evil to say of us. Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters and everything. They are to be well pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering. but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy towards all people. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, being justified by his grace, we may become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy. And I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him. Knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, he is self-condemned. When I send Artemis or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. Do your best to speed Zenos, the lawyer, and Apollos on their way. See that they lack nothing. and let our people learn to devote themselves to good works so as to help cases of urgent need and not be unfruitful. All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, thank you for the beauty, strength, and authority of the Word of God. And thank you that you give us when we ask the Holy Spirit. You give him, obviously, salvation, but you give fresh workings of him when we need him. And I ask, Lord, tonight that you would lift us up, that you would carry us through this passage, that regardless, ultimately, of whether this serves some kind of blueprint or if this is just to meet an immediate need tonight among us, Lord, communicate your will to us and grant us to be eager to hear what you have for us so that we would be trusting disciples of Jesus, having taken his yoke upon us. And so we commit this evening to you, Lord, in the name of Jesus, your son, amen. Well, my stated purpose tonight on behalf of the elders is to try to lay out from the book of Titus what would be a blueprint for a rural ministry and a ministry like ours. But because this is God's word and it is living and active, there may be also some things that are not pertinent to just that blueprint that are just in the text that need to be spoken tonight for pressing needs, kind of like what was said at the end, urgent needs. And so maybe someday somebody will edit the recording and take out the specific things and reduce it down to some bare blueprint. I don't know. But I'm asking for the Lord to lead us tonight and I trust that he will. So where do we turn in the Bible? If we were to look for what is a church supposed to do? The Bible's like a medicine cabinet. It's got all sorts of books in it, 66. The New Testament alone has 27. Each of those books meets specific needs. If you are struggling with assurance of salvation, wondering whether you're a Christian or not, 1 John and 2 Peter are right next to each other in the Bible, and both of them deal with that issue. I would encourage you to go there. If you have a church that is struggling with disunity, Philippians is a great book for that. Or if they're overconfident in being spiritual and yet are pathetically immature, First Corinthians is your book with all sorts of ethical and moral issues. Each book has been carefully designed by the Holy Spirit to meet needs ongoing in the church. We heard it this morning from Revelation, right? He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. What was spoken to Laodicea is not just for Laodicea, it's spoken for all of us. And so we continue to hear what the Holy Spirit wants the churches to know. And this part of the New Testament is when an apostle speaks to pastors. Titus and Timothy are pastors under the direction of the missionary activity of Paul And we, who are ministers, such as Pastor Rob and myself tonight, and all those among the elders, have the ongoing privilege to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying through Paul's living letters to us. And so these letters that lay out, pastors, I want you to do this, are ongoing in their significance. If you'll notice, there are three doctrinal sections in this book. The first is a very long greeting, that's a doctrinal section. The second is at the end of chapter two, and the third is embedded in chapter three. Each of those sections supports what Paul is saying about the churches, and those three doctrinal sections are gospel sections. The gospel hasn't changed, And Paul says the truth is according to godliness. How to live godly and the truth match each other. And so this book shows us live this way because this is true. This is right because this is true. And the gospel that's proclaimed hasn't changed. And so I suggest tonight that the commands that are given to these pastors in these three letters of first and second Timothy and Titus have also not changed in their significance. If you want to go deeper in that, look very carefully at how he grounds his reasoning. And if the grounds haven't changed and the nature of things is still the same, therefore the duties are still required of us. And some of those things get challenged in today's world. But these books are very relevant for us. And so, Titus has a twin sister book, 1 Timothy. Paul's kind of like that. He writes a Colossians and he writes an Ephesians. He writes a Galatians and he writes a Romans. He writes a 1st Timothy and he writes a Titus. At the same time, many of the verses and the commands are very similar. But it's interesting, Timothy's in Ephesus, which is a big city and is a hub for missionary activity and training and teaching in the area. Paul spent two years there. training ministers and they went out and the area got saturated because he stayed put rather than traveled. So Ephesus is a unique ministry and was having difficulties with some people in doctrine and so Timothy's to remain there and to kind of clean up. And it's a bigger book and it deals with more details like a bigger ministry might have. It's the one that mentions about prayer with regard to men and women. It's the one that mentions benevolent ministries with regard to widows. It has both qualities, qualifications for deacons and for elders. It's a bigger book and it deals with more topics. But I suggest to you that countryside Bible church may get the most out of Titus because it is more condensed So you get more of the big things brought into closer package, but it's also a rural setting. And Titus is left on an island, which I don't believe had big cities, and he's left on the island of Crete, as verse five of chapter one says, to set in order what remains. As the old Baptist used to say, there were two churches because the apostle founded them, they believed the gospel, but they were not true and ordered churches. They were not yet structured and put in place, and God wants his churches structured and all things to be done decently and in order. And so this is very important, and I hope tonight you'll be able to see why it's important. So Titus has three chapters and basically has three main sections, and they're all supported with a doctrine section. chapter one, chapter two, and chapter three, and it gives us our three imperatives as a church. Number one, leadership development. That is very important. Number two, role training or training in your callings. Number three, good works. It's really what the chapters deal with, good works in society or good works in culture outside of the church. Now picture with me. Paul planted churches on this island and left these little bunches of believers here, there, and everywhere, and now Titus has the opportunity to go around and find elders, find who would be qualified to lead these churches in each specific location. In a sense, he's a pastor who has mobility, much like pastors do today, but he's looking for the local congregation who is actually gonna be developed into leadership to manage that congregation with or without the pastor being present. The eldership is very key for a church's growth, stability, and health. And so this is the very first command. The very first imperative is to develop leaders. I love this book because it actually teaches on how you can be pervasive in a culture. Not just to dabble and sprinkle the gospel on top or set little isolated pockets of belief here or there with people, but how do you move from that into starting to pervade the culture and to have an impact with regard to the surroundings and the people around. This is a book that teaches that. Chapter 2 and chapter 3 especially show the people of God doing their part. But the very first thing Paul lays out is you've got to have good leaders. The reason is there are people teaching bad things that are upsetting whole families. They are destroying the works that he's going to lay out in chapter 2. They are prohibiting The good works that he lays out in chapter three, they are not teaching that which is profitable. They're teaching that which is speculative and unprofitable and harmful. And so leaders are required to silence them. This is really interesting language. Verse 11, they must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families. There's sharp rebuke. In verse 13, to the families themselves that they would not listen to these guys, devoting themselves to these myths and commands of men who turn away from the truth. So, what does it mean to be an elder? Well, you see qualifications. He is to be above reproach. That's the main thing in verse six and it's repeated in verse seven. So all that's about his family is to have the status of being above reproach. All that's about his character is so that he's above reproach. He is not supposed to be a target of criticism in his person and character and conduct. That will jeopardize his message. So find those individuals who will qualify then to be target-less so that they would have a good reputation, as 1 Timothy says, with outsiders. There should be that kind of a quality. Now, the message can turn people off, but the person himself should not. I hope that makes a difference. Okay, so find those individuals who have managed their families, conducting themselves in the way described here. who are not given over to these various vices and so are not open to being targeted. Those kind of faithful men should be entrusted with the things that Paul taught so that they would be able to teach others also. And according to verse 9, that they would be able to give instruction in sound doctrine, that's positive, and also to rebuke those who contradict it, that's negative. and is the silencing of those upsetting whole families. That's chapter one. Do you realize how important this is? A church I used to serve had a missionary in Scotland. You know how odd that would sound to somebody from the 1800s? 2% of the people of Scotland go to church, he reported. And this is now old statistics over 10 years. Two percent. If you know the history of Scotland in the 1800s, of the Robert Murray McChains, of the John G. Patons that go to the South Hebrides Islands and, you know, the South Seas Islands and the hymn writing and the rich theology, They would be shocked if they would have been told that 150 years out or even 120 years out, their country would be reduced to such secular non-attendance. Sometimes I wonder and I think about Hillsdale County and project 20 years down the road, 30 years down the road, and I think about the congregations around the county. And I wonder how many of those churches will even be present or even be there, have people in them. So many of them are dying. There's not young people, and there's not fresh leadership. And it just seems to me like almost we can get in the mode that it's like we can feel like we can kind of open the cupboard, take the box out, and there's a pastor. And here's an elder. And we can look, you know, like these guys are just going to be there when we need them to like pastor a church, lead this congregation. Instead, we have guys in retirement coming in, out of retirement to fit this need or that need. At what point then do we start growing our own so that a pipeline is formed So that five, 10, 15 years out, there's men available to continue to serve the churches in our area. Does that make sense? That vision has captured the leadership of our church. We would love to see a pipeline like that develop further than it has so far. So that the churches in this area who need a pastor, or the areas of dying churches who need a fresh church plant will have men able to go there and then also be supported by local men who have the qualities represented here and the love for God and his word to be able to partner with mobile ministers and see these works go forward to shepherd God's people and care for them. Leadership does not happen on a dime. It grows slow. It is developed. And so that's the first vision that we got from Titus. Leadership development is a call, we believe, for our church, both here and elsewhere. And what can we do to support it? We want to support this work. And so may the Lord grant us to be able to do that. That's our first one. Second, with regard to chapter two, it's been interesting to go down the list, and we touched on this a couple months ago in a Christmas sermon, an Advent sermon, the older men, the older women, the younger men, the younger women, and then Titus is thrown into the younger men apparently, just like Timothy, don't let somebody despise your youthfulness. And we see slaves. Masters are mentioned in other categories of Paul's letters. These are called house tables. Paul often will have a house table where he goes through the members of a household or various categories of society, roles that people play. That will be a separate category than personal holiness. We're going to be teaching on personal holiness again, is the plan, in a couple weeks. Our church often will bring up in our messages personal holiness. We will talk about your walk with God, where are you at? That often is where our sermons land, Sunday after Sunday. But we see in this passage that Paul, and in his other letters, Paul specifically wants us to think of ourselves not just as individuals or believers or disciples, he wants us to think of ourselves as men and women as old or young. The break is usually grandfather, grandmother, okay? You're either raising children or you're not. That's kind of the break on those things. To think of yourselves as being a boss or being an employee. Those categories are the roles that we are meant to play. They require a certain dignity, a certain behavior, and they have certain callings put upon them. The significance of this for ministry is found in Paul's, you might say, purposes. In verse five, he says that the word of God may not be reviled. And then in verse eight, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. You want to silence those who are ignorant? First Peter 2.15 says, do what is right. And Paul says the same thing here. Keep your nose to the grindstone. Keep doing what you're supposed to be doing. Fulfill your callings. Be a godly older man. Be a godly older woman. Be a godly mother. Be a godly father. Be a godly employee. Be a godly master. Do those things to the glory of God, and that lays out a platform that will silence those who want to say something bad about Christians. Oh, those Christians, they always do that. Oh no, I hired one once. That's not what I found. It was my best employee. Went way in beyond what I required. The so-called extra mile was common. Would stay after, not require payment. Just like one of us who was in the union had told me, an old guy, a Christian in the union said, the guy who's a Christian will get the worst job. because he knows, the boss knows, it'll get done. That kind of reputation is what we should have as Christians. It's not just the silence, the ignorance of foolish men, the opponents and those who slander us, but verse 10 actually says we can positively beautify or adorn the doctrine of God our Savior with our behavior. We can actually make, as the text I think could be translated, show all faith is good. That if you're a Christian, it's a good thing. If you hire a Christian, it will be a good thing. If you meet a Christian who's your landlord, that's a good thing. If you meet an old person who's a Christian, that's a good thing. Our conduct should say that. You follow me on that? This goes right with chapter one. Chapter one has preachers going out into the community, elders who are silencing others and teaching and giving good instructions. And so they give the good word, and then along comes the window washer, the Christian window washer to now clean up the house, and then commends, as one window washer did with his conduct, a lesbian couple commented, wow, this guy works as hard as we do. Well, that speaks well of the gospel. They thought of themselves as high, and then along comes somebody that works just as hard as they conceive of themselves working, and so Christianity looks a little different as a result of that. It's that coming alongside the spoken word with the enacted word, as it were, the lived out word. Does that make sense? We need to have this. Now, in our culture, The very fact that you start talking about old and young, because we don't like necessarily being old. We try to be really young. Or male and female, we've kind of gone beyond females and males wanting different roles. Now we can't even figure out our identity. And so, I mean, we are definitely reducing humanity down to a mere individual. We don't think of ourselves in this kind of categories much. And as churches, we probably often teach individual discipleship as if it's a one-size-fit-all thing. But there's something in this text I can't do. I cannot come alongside a mother, a young mother, of toddlers and grade school kids and speak into her life the way that my wife can. In fact, she's called to do that, to maintain her dignity, her sobriety, so that she can come alongside a young woman and soberize her, or make her sane, the text says, to give her right thinking. That word is used over and over again in this. It's interesting to me that I can't do that as a pastor. That's not my frontline calling, to kind of gather the young moms together and let's talk shop. about your kids. That's not my calling. Now I would say from First Timothy, neither is it my wife's calling to take the pulpit and lead this church. That Paul says that women should not exercise authority or teach, that they should receive instruction in all submission. which means they should be taught everything that's in the Bible, but it's not their calling to do the pastor work or the elder work of chapter one. It's kind of implied in having one wife, that that's not their calling, but then simultaneously, it's not my calling to take the young moms together and teach them and soberize and get them right thinking. There's a camaraderie that goes on in this. You all have that calling, whatever that may be, because I dare say you're either old or young tonight, you're either male or female tonight, you can find yourself in these categories somewhere, and you have a calling. If I go down and start talking to somebody in Jonesville, and they find out I'm a countryside Bible church pastor, and they go, oh, I got one of your members as my brother-in-law. And I go, oh, really? Or whatever that may be. And they're not adorning the doctrine of God in all respect. And they're not fulfilling their callings. And being a dignified older person and being a fruitful and working hard, younger person, they're not doing those things and now all of a sudden Christ or his church has a bad name, what can I say to them? How much clout does my word have, right? Or if I sit down at Community Action Agency, as I did once, and the lady behind said, oh, we met one of your members. She was so kind to us. We were in such a jam. And she said, sure, you can use our church. Sure, come out. We'll set the tables up, and you can have your senior tea out here. All of a sudden, wow, I'm happy to be a pastor of that church. It's like, this is great. Now we can talk about Jesus, because Jesus looks good in this person's eyes. This is a camaraderie between us. And in rural ministries, you can't hide. You're stuck. But if you turn it around, they can't hide. They're stuck too. They have to see us. So if we commend the gospel in our area, we're not a very mobile bunch. If we commend the gospel in a rural area, they will see those good works and they will glorify God in the day of visitation. That's the hope that we can have, working together, the preacher and congregation. Does that make sense? So fulfilling our roles is something that we want to add, or our callings, to kind of training. We want to train parenting. We want to train older saints. We want to train the women. We want to train the men. We want to train employees. We want to train bosses. All those kind of callings are necessary for us to fulfill this vision. As well as personal holiness, those things that Paul often talks about in his letters as well. Okay, hopefully that makes sense now. We got chapter one, we got chapter two. Chapter three picks up the theme of good works. Remind them to be submissive to rulers, authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work. He just got done saying that Christ, in chapter two, verse 14, died to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for good works. I would love to sit down at a lunch with one of you and to hear your passion for the good works that you're doing in your life. I'm talking passion. that you are so eager, so zealous, you got plans, you have ambitions, you have hopes, you have dreams, and you're just yearning to see them fulfilled. As Paul says in 2 Thessalonians, God wants to fulfill every desire of goodness and work of faith. Every desire of goodness and work of faith. So if there's nothing driving you of good work, to meet, as the end of chapter three says, urgent needs, to be fruitful in your life, to be a producer rather than a consumer, to be a fulfiller of the callings of the dominion mandate given in chapter one of Genesis. If there's not a drive and a passion and a yearning in you to do that, ask God to give it to you, to clarify what did he place you in this world for? Because especially Once the children are gone, how many of us then look and go like, well, what are we supposed to do? If that was our life and occupied the lion's share of our time, but now I'm like 52 and my children are grown, there's a lot of life left. Is there a passion in me to get out there and do good deeds? If not, There should be because that's the purpose of Jesus dying for me. He wants me on his team to be zealous for good works. And so we want to have that passion. We want to stir that passion and see you find it and be fruitful in it. It's interesting to me that Paul wants us to be more busy than speaking. We often get speaking and we end up quarreling. We often get speaking and we end up being critical and maligning and speaking evil of others. He would rather have us show perfect courtesy towards all people, to be a submissive bunch and to be ready for every good deed. The drop of a notice to be able to pick up and meet that need. And he gives us the reasons in chapter three and they're twofold. Number one, we also We're foolish, disobedient, slaves to passions and pleasures, spending our days in malice and envy, hated and hating one another. We also were a lousy bunch. How can we be so critical of the sinners around us when we used to be that ourselves? And the second reason, he says, and the only reason why you're different is because God and his great love for humanity saved you not by works of righteousness that you did, but out of sheer mercy. That's the only thing that separates you from that person you want to criticize at the shop, down at the school, that you've been working with for that job done at your house, all that sinful activity that gets under your skin. Be wary about letting it get to you because you used to be one of those. until God saved you by his blood, by the blood of his son, justified you and brought you to himself and made you zealous for good deeds rather than out to cheat people and hope you can get away with it. Hateful and hating one another, slaves to addictive passions and such like that. That's the heart of chapter three. We're to have an attitude towards outsiders that should be very courteous, very generous, very charitable. Not because they deserve it, but because we used to be like them and we didn't deserve to be liberated from that. Does that make sense? This is the vision given in chapter three. It's not a vision to change culture. The elders talked around this a lot. Like, is our goal to save America? change the culture. That's not the goal. Our goal is actually to meet needs. Now notice, the goal is not strictly even and limited to like, we just want to make Jesus look good. We do, we want him to receive glory, but we also genuinely want to meet needs. We are passionate for good works. We want to see the job done. We believe God is pleased with it because God called us to this, and it will also do the job of commending him. Okay, I hope that is clear. So, this is gonna be, how does that work in a church? It works like this. Our illustrations in our sermons should not just be how we serve in the nursery or how we work in kids clubs, but also how we work at the job, down at the school, how we treat extended family members, how we act outside of these walls, and not just what we do in these walls, because God is concerned about our good works everywhere. We are to be pervasive, salt and light getting out. That's the good works that God calls us to. Let me just add a couple applications. The first one comes from my wife. I had never conceived a chapter two this way. But it pertains to churches and their long-term, multi-generational health and stability. When it says that the young women should be self-controlled, pure workers at home, which in that culture, business was done at home, so they can be businesswomen as long as they're home-centered and making sure their children are are taken care of, kind, submissive to their own husband, that the word of God may not be reviled. Similarly, about the young men having nothing evil to say about us. I'd never thought of it this way, but this also applies that our children would not have anything bad to say about Jesus Christ, who had been the one's most witness to the behavior and conduct of us in our homes. That is an interesting application. I'm not sure that that's what Paul is targeting, but they are also outside the faith when they are growing up in our homes. And what do they think about us? I have a theory. If I walk into a church and I see a bunch of people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, and I see nobody in their 20s and 30s, I begin to wonder, What is the conduct of these older saints in their homes? Did Christ and his gospel get commended to the children of that home through the conduct that they saw there? Because if across the board, they are a church more interested in pure doctrine, whatever classification that is, if across the board they are more interested in causes or in issues, and they are not interested truly in Jesus Christ and fulfilling their callings at home, they were probably negligent on those things and also simultaneously leaving a bad witness for what Christ is really about. Like the widow of one famous, famous 20th century preacher, A.W. Tozer, who said, Aidan loved Jesus, not me. Whether that was just or fair, the very thought of it is horrific to me as a pastor. I want my wife to know deeply that she is loved. I want my children to know they are loved. I want my grandchildren to know they are loved. When push comes to shove, I want to do God's work. If I can't be with my wife, my children, my grandchildren, so be it at that moment. But in the spare hours when it's just Bob time versus them, do they know in their heart that I love them? If we as a congregation show that kind of love, not perfectly, but regularly in our home, our children also will find the doctrine of God adorned well. They'll see it as a beautiful thing, and many of them will believe and remain in the congregation to raise their children. Some move away, but many remain, and especially in a rural area. I dare say there is a fair number of good witness for Jesus Christ among our older saints here because I do believe that is part of the reason why we have 20s and 30s still raising children in our church. And if the children of the older ones didn't find reality in those saints, they leave. It is very hard to get new ones of that age group when there's not already a nucleus there and that church is already on the road to dying. and there's little that can be done to stop it. That is challenging. Second, another word of application based on this. Not all speech is helpful. Not all issues are helpful. Paul mentions this twice and he mentions it in other letters. In 2 Timothy, he talks about speculations that produce quarrels. In Titus chapter 1, he speaks about Jewish myths, stories, and also human commands of people who turn away from the truth. In chapter 3, he's very specific. He says, the saying I just gave you on the gospel is trustworthy. Insist on these things. These things lead believers to do good works. That's a great promise. If we are rich in the teaching of Jesus Christ in our church, it will lead believers to do a life of good works. You will see fruit in the lives of people. But then he says, after saying that's excellent and profitable, then he says, foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law are unprofitable and worthless. I wonder, We don't live with Jewish myths and genealogies, but we do live with QAnon and conspiracy theories and issues that float around our culture, which become the chief topics often of our conversations in the back hallways and quiet times, or especially on the internet and our social media. I wonder if Paul would look at us and say, that's a lot of speculation. That's a lot of wasted words and time. If I'm more quick to talk about politics than I am to talk about Jesus, it feels to me as if as a husband I would be more quick to talk about my mother than to talk about my wife. And I don't think my wife would be happy about that. And I use that illustration purposely because my mother is to be honored, and I love my mother, and there's a place and a time for politics. But if I'm more eager to talk about mom than I am to talk about my wife, something's wrong. And if we're more eager to talk about politics than to talk about our savior, and be more eager to talk to our neighbor about politics than to talk to our neighbor about our savior, there's something wrong. And I wonder if we have, instead of having the prayer warriors, we have internet warriors now, who are quick to grab up the Facebook page and other things and to go out and fight those battles, when really that time should be better spent on our knees, so that we can be submissive to rulers and authority, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy to all kinds of people. For those things are explicitly commanded. As a church, that means there should be no hobby horse doctrines. I've been guilty of them, and I pray to God that he keeps me from them till the day I die. It distracts, it creates quarrels, it'll split a church, It may be sound theology of a rare breed. It may be a practical issue that a pastor gets fixated on. Paul would have nothing with it. Focus on what is healthy. Focus on these roles, which are based on the Gospels. Focus on holiness. Focus on these things, and adorn the Gospel of God, and shut the mouths of opponents. That's what ministry is about, and as a church, we want to have that focal point on the Gospel. regularly, habitually, in all avenues of ministry. And in our homes, we want it to be what occupies our hearts, and out of the fullness of our hearts, what occupies our mouths. May the Lord do that for us. So here's the application for the vision statement that Pastor Rob mentioned earlier. I'll do a chapter one, a chapter two, and a chapter three. Chapter one, we believe God is calling Countryside Bible Church to be heavily involved in leadership development, that this is a calling that God has given to us, both locally and far away. If we do not do it locally, we will not rejoice and be heartily involved with it far away. It is utterly important for us to plant a church. If we don't plant a church, we will not have a heart sense of what it means to plant a church somewhere else and be rejoicing when it succeeds. I am so thankful that we are actually doing this work. and getting our hands dirty and getting involved. That church will need leaders, as do other churches in the area and hopefully other churches that are planted through this and Our Sister to Be Church. Leadership development is one calling, a pipeline for elders as well as a support for pastoral ministry in the area and around the world. Number two. Chapter two is a daunting task. Specifically, I want to apply it to education. Our children are growing up in a culture that wants to make them be strictly an individual and erase any kind of identity of male or female as an accidental thing or a preference thing. Our culture is just obliterating those distinctions. It is going to be so challenging to have boys be boys and girls be girls. and how to train them in that way, especially if we remain in keeping them in the public system. If that's our calling and we sense that's where God would have them to be, then we need to double down on our home discipleship and make sure we are working with them greatly on in the scriptures and in prayer and modeling what it means to be a man, modeling what it means to be a woman. These are very, very big challenges for us in this day. It would be tempting to think that the church could craft a program that would handle all that's needed. It is tempting as a director of a school to think we could come up with an educational curriculum that would train the next generation. If we attempted such a thing, brothers and sisters, I believe we would actually do cross purposes to this chapter. We would be stripping away our parents from the role God has called them to. Our number one challenge is to seek how to disciple our parents, how to disciple our marriages, so that men are men and women are women, and that our parents are genuinely training and discipling their children and modeling it. And our school then comes alongside as a supplement, an added tool to complement the main purpose of the home doing it. That's my heart on this. However Spring Branch Academy looks, I definitely don't want it to undermine the chief place that our parents have in the raising of the next generation. You, as Ephesians says, are to be equipped for the work of ministry, which is found then in chapter six, fathers bring up your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. So how do we do that? That's gonna be a challenge because there is a place for education. Then there is a place for a Christian school. But it's not a place for like it's the silver bullet to meet these kind of needs. We want to walk alongside parents, equip and empower and help. And so how do we create something that can do both and be helpful will be a challenge. But I'm offering that based on the vision given in chapter two. And then number, chapter three. What's your calling? I met a World War II vet once. It was in Louisville, Kentucky. I was working for him in his apartment complex. This would be 20 years ago. He's probably gone to be with the Lord now. He was about 80 at the time. And he told me that when he came back from the war, he was under conviction for two years that he should serve the Lord, and he really didn't want to serve the Lord. And finally says, okay, Now, whatever was in his heart and mind, I don't know, but he finally gave in, said, okay, I will serve you, Lord. And so he picked up the phone and called the seminary. And was so relieved they had no spot for him. It's like, oh, praise God. Because he was not called to be a pastor. Instead, and I saw the picture, it was a Shell gas station on Shelbyville Road in Louisville, Kentucky. One of the busiest kind of spokes going out from downtown. He had a bulletin board in that gas station where people could post needs. 500 members of the community went funneled through his gas station every day and he had a bulletin board where needs from the community were posted and he was happy to see that they were met. And he was happy as a lark doing that. That is the vision I would want for every single one of you in this church. Whatever your calling is, there are very few who are going to be called to do chapter one. In fact, I do not think our goal in the church is to make every one of you a high-powered apologist for Jesus. You got an arsenal of reasons on all sorts of stuff. That's for those that are called to that. Confess your faith, tell the reasons you know, but live your calling out and beautify the doctrine of God by being the best gas station owner that you can be. I think Martin Luther, if he could rise from the grave right now, would say that, you know. What should a cobbler be for the glory of Jesus? A shoemaker, the best shoemaker he should be. That was the Lutheran callings, the Lutheran doctrine of vocations. And I believe chapter three lays that out for us. God is a God who loves variety. All we have to do is walk in the woods or go down to the Beaver Garden, and we can see all sorts of vegetables there, and we can see all sorts of conifers and deciduous trees of various kinds all over the place, plus the birds and the fish population. I think the Church of Jesus Christ is just as plenteous and diverse. God has a calling for you. Some of you are caregivers. Some of you are growers. Some of you are burden relievers like Philemon. Some of you are generous like Tabitha. Some of you are analysts. You can't stand not knowing how something ticks and you tore into every appliance around the house when you were growing up. And you tear into arguments today. Whatever your calling is, God wants you to be that to the glory of God. And we'd love to support you in it and share with you that passion. And so may the Lord do these things for us and lead us specifically as a church, what kind of ministries we pursue along these lines, and then also individually, what our various roles are and our individual good deeds that God has called us to. Amen.