Dave Hentschel: Well, amen.
Dave Hentschel: And Happy Palm Sunday.
Dave Hentschel: We have a very exciting week of ministry planned at Millington Baptist Church.
Dave Hentschel: Thursday night, Friday night, of course, Easter Sunday.
Dave Hentschel: We hope that you'll join us for all of our special events this week.
Dave Hentschel: This morning, we're continuing our sermon series through the book of 2 Timothy.
Dave Hentschel: If you'd open up your Bibles and turn there with me, we'll be in chapter two today.
Dave Hentschel: I want to start today by telling you a story about Princeton Theological Seminary.
Dave Hentschel: This school was once a bastion of Bible-believing theological conservatism.
Dave Hentschel: And I'm not talking about the Puritan era or the era of Jonathan Edwards in the 1700s.
Dave Hentschel: I'm talking about the 1800s and even the early 1900s.
Dave Hentschel: They had four presidents in a row that were incredible theologians.
Dave Hentschel: Its founder, the great Archibald Alexander, which was a pillar in the church.
Dave Hentschel: His successor, Charles Hodge, famous for his influential three-volume systematic theology, still used today.
Dave Hentschel: His son, then, named after the first founder, A.A.
Dave Hentschel: Hodge, his dad's mentor.
Dave Hentschel: And then, of course, the great B.B.
Dave Hentschel: Warfield, famous for defending the inerrancy of Scripture.
Dave Hentschel: This is truly a theological Mount Rushmore on the screen.
Dave Hentschel: Giants for the faith, mighty in the scriptures.
Dave Hentschel: They all taught there, defending the authority of the Bible, defending sound doctrine.
Dave Hentschel: This was synonymous with what is now called Old Princeton.
Dave Hentschel: That was once their legacy, but over time that legacy wasn't maintained.
Dave Hentschel: Over time, the seminary slowly drifted during the fundamentalist modernist controversy of the early 1900s.
Dave Hentschel: And over time, German higher criticism infiltrated each of the classrooms, and soon pastors were being trained there to question the Bible.
Dave Hentschel: And soon missionaries were being sent out from there who didn't even believe in, much less preach the gospel.
Dave Hentschel: So what had once been a place of strength became a place of theological drift and confusion.
Dave Hentschel: And it's very sad.
Dave Hentschel: The word seminary comes from the Latin word semmon, which means seed.
Dave Hentschel: It was supposed to be a place where lots of little seeds and seedlings were planted, and they were supposed to grow and then multiply and become new plants like the ones that were from before.
Dave Hentschel: But if you were to enroll in and attend Princeton Theological Seminary today, well, one of their big new programs is that you can study their new farmonary program, a place dedicated to training faith leaders conversant in the areas of ecology, sustainability, and food justice.
Dave Hentschel: Now, I guess that's okay, but never at the expense of sound doctrine.
Dave Hentschel: It's largely not something that they are committed to anymore.
Dave Hentschel: There are small pockets of evangelicals there, but it is a tiny minority.
Dave Hentschel: The point here, friends, is that if Christian institutions do not intentionally pass the faith on intact, they will drift.
Dave Hentschel: Maybe not all at once, but they will slowly drift further and further away one generation at a time.
Dave Hentschel: Which raises an important question for anyone who leads a Christian ministry.
Dave Hentschel: How does a church remain faithful across generations instead of drifting away from the gospel?
Dave Hentschel: This is a danger for every seminary, for every church, for every Christian ministry.
Dave Hentschel: And the problem is all too common.
Dave Hentschel: Many once solid gospel-teaching institutions are now teaching anything but the gospel.
Dave Hentschel: The solution and answer to that gigantic problem is actually found in our text today, 2 Timothy 2, 1 to 7.
Dave Hentschel: This is exactly what Paul is addressing in this particular passage.
Dave Hentschel: So the title of my message today is How to Prevent Gospel Drift, Holding the Line for the Next Generation.
Dave Hentschel: You'll see four different parts to this passage.
Dave Hentschel: First, we're going to talk about what it means to do that by depending on God.
Dave Hentschel: Secondly, we're going to learn to entrust the truth to others.
Dave Hentschel: Third, he's going to say you need to embrace the cost of real ministry, and finally, he will tell us you need to reflect deeply on what really matters.
Dave Hentschel: What you're going to see here in this text as a preview are three dominant metaphors.
Dave Hentschel: There's going to be a military metaphor, then there's going to be an athletic metaphor, and then there's going to be an agrarian metaphor.
Dave Hentschel: And you'll also notice three key imperative commands in this text.
Dave Hentschel: The first command is going to be to be strengthened.
Dave Hentschel: And the second command is going to be to entrust, and then the third command is going to be to co-suffer.
Dave Hentschel: So those are what we're going to be talking about today.
Dave Hentschel: And let's pray and then we'll dive right into the text.
Dave Hentschel: Would you pray with me?
Dave Hentschel: Father, we thank you for your word.
Dave Hentschel: Thank you that your truth does not change.
Dave Hentschel: Even when the world around us does, you do not.
Dave Hentschel: We ask that now you would strengthen us by your grace, just as you commanded Timothy.
Dave Hentschel: Open our minds to understand your word, open our hearts to receive it.
Dave Hentschel: And Lord, help us not only to hear your truth today, but to live it out and to pass it on faithfully to our children, to the next generation.
Dave Hentschel: For we ask it in Jesus' name.
Dave Hentschel: And everyone said, Amen.
Dave Hentschel: Point one, depend on God.
Dave Hentschel: Take a look at chapter 2, verse 1.
Dave Hentschel: Paul begins this chapter by saying, You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Dave Hentschel: Notice that transitional word, then.
Dave Hentschel: You may want to circle that.
Dave Hentschel: That begins this verse, but tells us immediately that we need to look backwards.
Dave Hentschel: You may recall what had just happened at the end of chapter one were a group of both positive examples and negative examples.
Dave Hentschel: The positive example was a man named Onocephorus.
Dave Hentschel: Paul says, You should be like him and strengthened as he was.
Dave Hentschel: And then there were two negative examples.
Dave Hentschel: And Paul says, you should not be like them.
Dave Hentschel: You, my child, follow me.
Dave Hentschel: You should be different.
Dave Hentschel: And the way I want you to be different is by obeying this command to be strengthened.
Dave Hentschel: Now, if you're a theological nerd, you may be interested to know that the Greek language has not only active voice and passive voice, but they have a third voice that's called middle voice.
Dave Hentschel: In the middle voice, the recipient is both the doer of the action and the receiver of the action.
Dave Hentschel: In this case, this particular verb is found in the middle voice.
Dave Hentschel: Oftentimes in the scriptures, when that happens, it's because there is a divine imperative happening here that assumes some human responsibility.
Dave Hentschel: It assumes that we are to yield in some sense to this strengthening.
Dave Hentschel: It assumes that we are to be receptive to this strengthening.
Dave Hentschel: Be strengthened.
Dave Hentschel: So much of what we hear today does not follow this particular command.
Dave Hentschel: So much of what we hear today is that we need to be looking into our inner self.
Dave Hentschel: So much of what we hear today is we need to find our own inner strength.
Dave Hentschel: But the scripture, I would say, in the New Testament, does not teach that.
Dave Hentschel: It does not teach that you need to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and look deep down inside for the strength that is hidden on the inside of you.
Dave Hentschel: It is nothing like that famous Mariah Carey song called Hero.
Dave Hentschel: Do you remember that song?
Dave Hentschel: The lyrics go like this there's a hero if you look inside your heart.
Dave Hentschel: You don't have to be afraid of what you are.
Dave Hentschel: There's an answer if you reach into your soul and the sorrow that you know will melt away.
Dave Hentschel: Hey.
Dave Hentschel: And then a hero comes along with the strength to carry on, and you cast your fears aside because you know you can survive.
Dave Hentschel: So when you feel like hope is gone, look inside you and be strong.
Dave Hentschel: And you'll finally see the truth that a hero lies in you.
Dave Hentschel: That's such a nice song.
Dave Hentschel: It gives me all the feels.
Dave Hentschel: When I hear that song, I think I can climb a mountain.
Dave Hentschel: But can I say with all due respect to Miss Carey, I don't think that's a New Testament song.
Dave Hentschel: The strength that we live in in the Christian life is a strength that is not our own strength.
Dave Hentschel: We are strengthened.
Dave Hentschel: We need strengthening.
Dave Hentschel: We need someone to strengthen us.
Dave Hentschel: And thank God He has given us the gift of His Holy Spirit for exactly these matters.
Dave Hentschel: We are weak, but he is strong.
Dave Hentschel: We are frail, feeble, children of dust.
Dave Hentschel: Through him we prevail.
Dave Hentschel: It is not I, but Christ working in me, Paul says, who is adequate to these things.
Dave Hentschel: Christ has made us adequate.
Dave Hentschel: He's the one who lifts up weak knees, he's the one who strengthens feeble hands.
Dave Hentschel: The Bible says, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.
Dave Hentschel: It does not say, be strong in yourself.
Dave Hentschel: The old hymn writer said it well.
Dave Hentschel: Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing.
Dave Hentschel: We're not the right man on our side, the man's a man of God's own choosing.
Dave Hentschel: Does ask who that may be?
Dave Hentschel: Christ Jesus, it is he.
Dave Hentschel: Lord Saboeth his name, and from age to age the same, and he must win the battle.
Dave Hentschel: Paul says, be strengthened.
Dave Hentschel: But be strengthened by what?
Dave Hentschel: He says, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Dave Hentschel: What grace?
Dave Hentschel: The grace he just talked about in chapter one.
Dave Hentschel: The grace that called you, the grace that saved you, the grace that justified you, the grace that is sanctifying you.
Dave Hentschel: In the Christian life, though, grace is not just pardon, it's power.
Dave Hentschel: Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 15.
Dave Hentschel: He says, But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.
Dave Hentschel: On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that was with me.
Dave Hentschel: Notice there's some work here, but it's mysterious, isn't it?
Dave Hentschel: There's a synergy happening.
Dave Hentschel: Even the work that we do is somehow coming from grace.
Dave Hentschel: Be strengthened in the grace that is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Dave Hentschel: You cannot do this in your own strength.
Dave Hentschel: Brothers and sisters, if you are feeling weak today, listen to the good news of this text.
Dave Hentschel: If you're feeling the need for God's strength, then listen to these words of encouragement from 2 Timothy chapter 1.
Dave Hentschel: Be strengthened by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Dave Hentschel: Now, some of you are winning the battles of your life right now, and I'm so thankful that you're having a good season.
Dave Hentschel: I rejoice with you.
Dave Hentschel: But there may come a time that despite your best efforts and despite your utmost hard work, you are still sensing that things are falling apart around you.
Dave Hentschel: And in those days, at that place of rock bottom, may you come to know the one who strengthens the weak.
Dave Hentschel: May you come to know the one who has his power at work in you.
Dave Hentschel: The song says it this way Christ in us, the cornerstone.
Dave Hentschel: We go forth by grace alone.
Dave Hentschel: Let me give you an example of this.
Dave Hentschel: Annie Johnson Flint.
Dave Hentschel: This woman was an orphan.
Dave Hentschel: She had developed arthritis.
Dave Hentschel: She was bent over most of her life in a wheelchair.
Dave Hentschel: Not the kind of modern wheelchairs we have either.
Dave Hentschel: This was over a hundred years ago.
Dave Hentschel: She also had cancer and was going blind.
Dave Hentschel: She spent most of her later years in bed until her body was covered with sores.
Dave Hentschel: Somehow, this woman, however, found a sweetness in just choosing to trust the Lord.
Dave Hentschel: And she actually was the one to encourage others through notes of encouragement and through writing poems.
Dave Hentschel: Many of those poems we have taken and turned into the great hymns of the church that we still enjoy today.
Dave Hentschel: She wrote this.
Dave Hentschel: To added afflictions, he addeth his mercy.
Dave Hentschel: To multiplied trials, he multiplies peace.
Dave Hentschel: His love has no limits, his grace has no measure, his power, no boundary, known unto men.
Dave Hentschel: For out of his infinite riches in Jesus, he giveth and giveth and giveth again.
Dave Hentschel: Brothers and sisters, if you have the choice on your Spotify playlist to put in Mariah Carey or Annie Johnson Flint, choose Annie every single day of the week.
Dave Hentschel: Depend on God.
Dave Hentschel: Point two.
Dave Hentschel: Paul says, And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
Dave Hentschel: Notice, he says, What you have heard from me.
Dave Hentschel: What we have heard from Paul is the sum teaching of the entire gospel message.
Dave Hentschel: There's a movement happening here in the letter of 2 Timothy.
Dave Hentschel: In chapter 1, we were instructed to guard the good news, to guard the good deposit.
Dave Hentschel: But notice here, it's not just going to be about guarding, it's going to be also about passing it along to the next generation.
Dave Hentschel: So we're moving here in the letter from guarding to sharing.
Dave Hentschel: But I want you to see that guarding and sharing are actually interconnected.
Dave Hentschel: And I want you to see that the guarding happens by the sharing.
Dave Hentschel: How do you guard the gospel?
Dave Hentschel: By sharing it, by entrusting it to faithful men.
Dave Hentschel: Which means what?
Dave Hentschel: Faithful men probably is a reference here to elders, qualified elders.
Dave Hentschel: This is not a ministry of addition, it's going to be a ministry of multiplication.
Dave Hentschel: Paul is not just preserving the truth, he's reproducing teachers.
Dave Hentschel: Notice here we have four different generations in this verse.
Dave Hentschel: We have Paul, then we have Timothy, then we have faithful men, then we have others.
Dave Hentschel: This is their strategy.
Dave Hentschel: The gospel always moves forward through people who intentionally pass it on.
Dave Hentschel: Now, some scholars have made the observation here that in this verse, in verse 2, the word for men here is actually not distinctively a word for male.
Dave Hentschel: It is the Greek word anthropos, which simply means human.
Dave Hentschel: And so this is not necessarily referring only to men.
Dave Hentschel: In fact, it's a collective word that I would argue refers to both men and women who bear this responsibility.
Dave Hentschel: There are many examples, after all, of women passing along the faith as well in the New Testament.
Dave Hentschel: Titus chapter 2, we look in the Old Testament, Proverbs chapter 1, listening to this woman.
Dave Hentschel: We learned in chapter 1 of 2 Timothy that it was Timothy's mother and his grandmother that passed along the truth to him.
Dave Hentschel: So this exhortation does not just apply to elders in the church, it applies to all of us, whether we're men, whether we're women.
Dave Hentschel: This is the strategy.
Dave Hentschel: And this is not a new strategy.
Dave Hentschel: Back in the book of Exodus in chapter 18, do you remember Moses' father-in-law, Jethro?
Dave Hentschel: What was his strategy for his son-in-law?
Dave Hentschel: Moses, delegate to other leaders, find people around you and train them and multiply yourself.
Dave Hentschel: What was Jesus' strategy when he was here for three years?
Dave Hentschel: I'm going to get 12 disciples and I'm going to train them so that they'll be able to go out and share this message too.
Dave Hentschel: That is the strategy.
Dave Hentschel: We're not going to let generations arise who don't know what this precious treasure is that the apostles once taught us.
Dave Hentschel: And what is that precious treasure?
Dave Hentschel: What is the message that you have heard from me?
Dave Hentschel: It is the simple gospel, the simple message of Jesus.
Dave Hentschel: It's the message that we celebrate this week.
Dave Hentschel: It's the message that Jesus came from heaven to earth, took on human flesh, was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, the life that you and I should have lived.
Dave Hentschel: And then he died the perfect death, the death that you and I actually deserved.
Dave Hentschel: And then on the third day, victoriously, he rose again, conquering death and the grave and the devil.
Dave Hentschel: And then this same Jesus ascended to heaven to the right hand of the Father.
Dave Hentschel: And he reigns now forever.
Dave Hentschel: And then he has sent his Holy Spirit to reside on the inside of us, to strengthen us.
Dave Hentschel: And through him we live and we move and we have our being.
Dave Hentschel: This is what we celebrate this time of year.
Dave Hentschel: This is what we celebrate even on Palm Sunday, that this Jesus came riding on a donkey, presenting himself as the king of the Jews, and not just the Jews, but the king of the whole world.
Dave Hentschel: And he came to offer himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world on Passover week.
Dave Hentschel: He came to offer himself as the ultimate Lamb.
Dave Hentschel: And then later this same week, we will celebrate that this Lamb has now shed his blood, and that we now can apply that same blood to the doorposts of our heart.
Dave Hentschel: And just like the children of old who had the wrath of God pass over them, when we apply the blood, the wrath of God passes over us.
Dave Hentschel: And all who come to him by faith and faith alone will be forgiven and will receive God's grace.
Dave Hentschel: This is the message that we celebrate during Holy Week.
Dave Hentschel: And this is the message that Timothy had received.
Dave Hentschel: This is the message that needs to be passed on, passed on, and this is the message that we are passing on as well.
Dave Hentschel: So Paul says, Now I want you to take the same message.
Dave Hentschel: Do not change one word and pass it along to faithful men.
Dave Hentschel: And what will they do?
Dave Hentschel: They're going to be able to do the same exact thing and teach others as well.
Dave Hentschel: This is so important.
Dave Hentschel: Because later on in chapter three, what we're going to read about is that times will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.
Dave Hentschel: In fact, what they're going to do, Paul says, is they're going to gather to themselves false teachers who teach them whatever their itching ears want to hear.
Dave Hentschel: And so Paul says, Timothy, don't get into that.
Dave Hentschel: You stick with this message, stick with the truth, stick with that old-time religion, if you will, stick with the gospel.
Dave Hentschel: This is what we're seeking to do here at MBC each and every day.
Dave Hentschel: There are so many examples of what's happening with this going on at our church.
Dave Hentschel: I can't name them all, so I decided just to name one.
Dave Hentschel: Our fifth and sixth grade boys and girls classes.
Dave Hentschel: Every single fifth and sixth grade boy or girl has the opportunity to attend a 9 a.m.
Dave Hentschel: children's Sunday school class.
Dave Hentschel: Linda and Linda and Deirdre teach the girls, and then Mark Molillo and James currently are teaching the boys.
Dave Hentschel: And these teachers have a legacy of years, some of them decades, teaching these classes to these kids.
Dave Hentschel: Mark will lead them through an Old Testament survey class that he developed along with James.
Dave Hentschel: Linda and Linda have all of these scripture memory tools that they've been faithfully teaching these kids for years and some of them decades.
Dave Hentschel: In fact, just here's a quick straw poll.
Dave Hentschel: If you have either attended one of their classes or one of your kids has attended one of those classes, would you just put your hand up and look around for a second?
Dave Hentschel: This is what we're doing.
Dave Hentschel: And we ought to thank God, amen.
Dave Hentschel: We ought to thank God for teachers like that who are faithfully investing in the next generation.
Dave Hentschel: Let me give you an illustration of how important this is.
Dave Hentschel: Here's an illustration from the Green Bay Packers of the 1960s.
Dave Hentschel: They were dominating pro football for an entire era.
Dave Hentschel: Well, they had a particular play that they would run.
Dave Hentschel: Maybe you've never heard of this, but they ran a very famous play called the Green Bay Power Sweep.
Dave Hentschel: Everything was wrapped up in this one play that they capitalized on because of their size and their speed and their agility.
Dave Hentschel: It was running a play that no one could defend against.
Dave Hentschel: The Green Bay Power Sweep was like this.
Dave Hentschel: You had two guards, you had Jerry Kramer, 6'4, 270 pounds, and this other guy, Fuzzy Thurston, about six foot, 250 pounds.
Dave Hentschel: They'd send these two twin towers, these two giant guys on the outside of the line, and then behind them they had a fullback named Jim Taylor from New Orleans, Louisiana, and he would run right on their heels, and then you had these three guys going around the outside of the line, and then creeping right behind them was Paul Horneck.
Dave Hentschel: So you had two guards, you had a fullback, and then he's leading interference with Taylor.
Dave Hentschel: This was the most formidable play of the 1960s.
Dave Hentschel: This play was so important to Vince Lombardi that every single summer when he would get his team together for camp right before preseason football, he would explain this play once again every year.
Dave Hentschel: And no matter how many years he would explain the Green Bay power sweep, he would get just as excited to explain to the new guys the signature play on their team.
Dave Hentschel: And what Jim, what Vince Lombardi did was he shared with them with such intensity and such fervor this particular sweep because he would say, Gentlemen, to beat us, you gotta beat our power sweep.
Dave Hentschel: And so they would run this play in the 60s over and over and over, and nobody could stop them.
Dave Hentschel: It was their signature play.
Dave Hentschel: Friends, the reason why I'm sharing that illustration is because the Church of Jesus Christ has a power sweep.
Dave Hentschel: We have a play, we have a signature play.
Dave Hentschel: We have one essential play that we have to run, and if we can't run this play, we have one thing to do.
Dave Hentschel: If we do not run this play, it doesn't matter how great our property is, it doesn't matter how much parking we have, it doesn't matter how awesome the music is, it doesn't matter how great the programs are, it doesn't matter if we don't run this play, we're toast.
Dave Hentschel: The play is in verse two.
Dave Hentschel: The play is guard the gospel and pass it on.
Dave Hentschel: If a church doesn't run this play, it's dead.
Dave Hentschel: They're like a dead tree.
Dave Hentschel: It might still be standing, but in a matter of time, it's gonna fall.
Dave Hentschel: And history shows us what happens when churches and seminaries and ministries stop running this play.
Dave Hentschel: Princeton Seminary once stood firmly for the authority of Scripture, but over time their legacy was not passed on.
Dave Hentschel: When the first president, Archibald Alexander, lay dying on his deathbed in 1851, he called his successor to his bedside, Charles Hodge.
Dave Hentschel: And at that time, he handed him a white bone walking stick, literally made out of whalebone.
Dave Hentschel: And he said to Charles, This is a symbol.
Dave Hentschel: You my Must hand this to your successor in office in a sense that it might be handed down as a kind of a symbol of orthodoxy of our seminary.
Dave Hentschel: I want you to take this stick and I want you to pass it on.
Dave Hentschel: Well, Charles took the stick, went out into the hallway, and broke down in tears.
Dave Hentschel: His mentor, his teacher, the guy who founded the seminary was dying.
Dave Hentschel: And now everything was on his shoulders.
Dave Hentschel: And he didn't know if he could handle it.
Dave Hentschel: But of course he did.
Dave Hentschel: And Hodge taught so well and then passed it on to the next guy, and then passed it on to the next guy.
Dave Hentschel: But somewhere along the line, I don't know where this white bone walking stick is today.
Dave Hentschel: Maybe it's still there sitting in a closet in Princeton.
Dave Hentschel: I don't know.
Dave Hentschel: But somewhere along the line, these guys traded seminary for farmonery.
Dave Hentschel: We cannot do that.
Dave Hentschel: We must entrust the truth to others.
Dave Hentschel: You are holding a white whalebone walking stick.
Dave Hentschel: Someone gave it to you.
Dave Hentschel: The question is, who are you handing it to?
Dave Hentschel: This is how a church must remain faithful from one generation to the next.
Dave Hentschel: Is the power sweep?
Dave Hentschel: Number three.
Dave Hentschel: How do we prevent gospel drift?
Dave Hentschel: We have to embrace the cost of real ministry, and there is a cost.
Dave Hentschel: Take a look at verse 3.
Dave Hentschel: Paul gets into this.
Dave Hentschel: Timothy, share in suffering, he says in verse 3, share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
Dave Hentschel: Suffering will be a part of ministry.
Dave Hentschel: And notice it's a group thing.
Dave Hentschel: With us, he says.
Dave Hentschel: Who's us?
Dave Hentschel: Me, Paul, Onocephorus, with Jesus, with the other apostles.
Dave Hentschel: Share in suffering with us, Timothy.
Dave Hentschel: This is what it means to be part of this group, this Christian group.
Dave Hentschel: Suffering is going to be part of the deal.
Dave Hentschel: This is such a theme in the New Testament that if you don't notice it, you must not be reading the New Testament.
Dave Hentschel: I'll just give you five very quick examples of how this theme shows up, sprinkled almost in every book.
Dave Hentschel: Here's one from Acts chapter 14.
Dave Hentschel: It says, When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.
Dave Hentschel: Matthew chapter 16, verses 24 and 25.
Dave Hentschel: Then Jesus told his disciples, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Dave Hentschel: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Dave Hentschel: John 16, 33.
Dave Hentschel: Jesus says, I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace.
Dave Hentschel: In the world you will have tribulation.
Dave Hentschel: But take heart.
Dave Hentschel: I have overcome the world.
Dave Hentschel: John 15, 18 to 20.
Dave Hentschel: If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
Dave Hentschel: If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.
Dave Hentschel: But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
Dave Hentschel: Remember the word that I said to you a servant is not greater than his master.
Dave Hentschel: If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
Dave Hentschel: There is this fundamental disconnect between Christians and the world.
Dave Hentschel: We are fundamentally out of step.
Dave Hentschel: One more.
Dave Hentschel: Matthew 10, 25.
Dave Hentschel: If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they malign those of his household?
Dave Hentschel: So there's five quick examples.
Dave Hentschel: My point here is just to show you that suffering is assumed for those of us who follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
Dave Hentschel: Ephesians chapter 6 says it is not peacetime.
Dave Hentschel: There's a war, and it's not a fleshly war, but it's a spiritual war, and there will be a cost for you to enlist in this army as a soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ, because that's what soldiers do.
Dave Hentschel: Paul continues this image in verse 4, as he says, No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
Dave Hentschel: An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.
Dave Hentschel: It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.
Dave Hentschel: Now pause right there.
Dave Hentschel: Notice there's three different images.
Dave Hentschel: Three different images.
Dave Hentschel: There's the soldier, there's the athlete, and then there's the farmer.
Dave Hentschel: So I want to unpack those three images, and I got a chart.
Dave Hentschel: There's two things that are happening with each image there's an exhortation, and then there's also a promise.
Dave Hentschel: Each of them has an exhortation, each of them has a promise.
Dave Hentschel: And I want you to look for those two things with each metaphor.
Dave Hentschel: So look back at verse 4.
Dave Hentschel: The soldier.
Dave Hentschel: In the soldier, the exhortation here is that they should not get entangled in civilian affairs.
Dave Hentschel: And what he's talking about there is a single-mindedness.
Dave Hentschel: There is a command here that we're not to be distracted, that the Timothy is to give himself more of a narrow focus.
Dave Hentschel: So the exhortation is to be undistracted.
Dave Hentschel: A soldier has an undistracted devotion to a duty that precludes entanglements in what Paul calls the daily things of life, the civilian pursuits, if you will.
Dave Hentschel: Are those things sinful things?
Dave Hentschel: I don't think so.
Dave Hentschel: He could have used the word for sinful things here if he wanted to, and he did not.
Dave Hentschel: What's probably being criticized here is not so much involvement, but entanglement.
Dave Hentschel: Hebrews chapter 12 says something very similar.
Dave Hentschel: When you're running, you should throw off those things which easily entangle you.
Dave Hentschel: What are those things which easily entangle you?
Dave Hentschel: Well, my friend James Rickershauser says, who runs marathons, that would be anything that keeps you from running.
Dave Hentschel: Anything that keeps you from doing your best.
Dave Hentschel: Throw off those things that distract you.
Dave Hentschel: Can I talk just a second here about your phone?
Dave Hentschel: I know.
Dave Hentschel: I'm stepping on your toe.
Dave Hentschel: Look at your screen time this week.
Dave Hentschel: If you have an iPhone, you tap settings, scroll down your screen time.
Dave Hentschel: If you do that, you might just like me break down and cry.
Dave Hentschel: What am I doing?
Dave Hentschel: Scrolling and scrolling.
Dave Hentschel: Look at the top three apps that you've been using this week and look how much time you've spent on those three apps and ask yourself Am I using this device too much?
Dave Hentschel: There are tools you can download and use to limit your screen time.
Dave Hentschel: There are ways in which you can limit this, and I encourage you to take a good look at that because we have to make the most of the time that we have.
Dave Hentschel: Paul says you're a soldier, and it's easy to get distracted by undue and overwhelming things that are in this world that are not necessarily sinful things, but they will drain your time, they will drain your resources, and they will drain your focus.
Dave Hentschel: And Paul says, I want you to have an undistracted focus, a single-minded focus.
Dave Hentschel: What's the promise?
Dave Hentschel: The promise is in this verse, if you will do that, Paul says, you will please the one who enlisted you.
Dave Hentschel: You see that?
Dave Hentschel: You will hear those words.
Dave Hentschel: Well done, good and faithful servant.
Dave Hentschel: So let's look at my chart.
Dave Hentschel: Remember, each exhortation has, each, each image has an exhortation and a promise.
Dave Hentschel: The exhortation here, be undistracted.
Dave Hentschel: Throw your phone in the trash.
Dave Hentschel: Just kidding.
Dave Hentschel: But use less, your less use your phone less.
Dave Hentschel: Be undistracted by whatever is distracting you.
Dave Hentschel: Maybe it's not your phone for you.
Dave Hentschel: What is it though?
Dave Hentschel: The promise, you do that, you will be pleasing to God.
Dave Hentschel: All right, let's talk about the Navy SEALs.
Dave Hentschel: What does it take?
Dave Hentschel: Jocko Willink explains one of the most brutal parts of that process is something they call hell week.
Dave Hentschel: For five and a half days, these candidates are pushed to the absolute limit, running miles in the sand, carrying boats over their heads, plunged into freezing water, and they get maybe a couple hours of sleep total.
Dave Hentschel: They are cold, exhausted, disoriented, and completely spent.
Dave Hentschel: And here's what's fascinating: most of the guys who quit don't quit because they're physically incapable.
Dave Hentschel: These guys are in great shape.
Dave Hentschel: They quit because they reach a point where they say, This is too uncomfortable.
Dave Hentschel: This is too much.
Dave Hentschel: Jocko Willink makes the point: being a seal isn't about comfort, though.
Dave Hentschel: It's about the mission.
Dave Hentschel: The ones who make it are the ones who have already settled in their own minds in advance, I'm not here to be comfortable.
Dave Hentschel: I'm not here to do that.
Dave Hentschel: I'm here to endure.
Dave Hentschel: I'm here to finish.
Dave Hentschel: And that's the picture the Apostle Paul is giving us right here.
Dave Hentschel: A good soldier doesn't build his life around the comfort.
Dave Hentschel: He builds it around the calling.
Dave Hentschel: He does not ask, is this easy?
Dave Hentschel: He asks, Am I being faithful?
Dave Hentschel: He doesn't quit when it gets hard.
Dave Hentschel: He expects it to be hard because he knows there's a mission, there's a commander, and there's something far more important than my comfort.
Dave Hentschel: So the question for me is, am I being distracted?
Dave Hentschel: Have I quietly made comfort my goal?
Dave Hentschel: Someone once said, Christianity is like a long obedience in the same direction.
Dave Hentschel: What is distracting you from this spiritual investment?
Dave Hentschel: Be like the soldier.
Dave Hentschel: Number two, the second image that he used here is the image of the athlete.
Dave Hentschel: And the exhortation to the athlete is to compete according to the rules.
Dave Hentschel: The rules.
Dave Hentschel: Now, some of you do not like rules, and you resist with a certain kind of fleshly lawlessness that comes up with a rebellious spirit anytime there's a rule.
Dave Hentschel: What this means, though, in the Christian life is that God's law is for my good.
Dave Hentschel: The rules here in the image, I would think would refer to an uprightness in every facet, in every situation.
Dave Hentschel: Spiritually, this would refer to a consistent manifestation of godliness in my life.
Dave Hentschel: If I do that, here's the promise.
Dave Hentschel: There's a crown.
Dave Hentschel: The victor's crown.
Dave Hentschel: This in Roman times would be the victor's wreath.
Dave Hentschel: The same image comes up in chapter four of this letter.
Dave Hentschel: There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, but not only for me, for all those who love his appearing.
Dave Hentschel: That's me and you.
Dave Hentschel: So if we go back to our chart, when it comes to the athlete, the exhortation is to be upright.
Dave Hentschel: And the promise is you will earn eternal rewards.
Dave Hentschel: Let me try to illustrate this one.
Dave Hentschel: For years, he was one of the most celebrated athletes in the world.
Dave Hentschel: He won the tour de France, not once, not twice, not three times, seven times in a row.
Dave Hentschel: Something no one had ever done.
Dave Hentschel: His name was Lance Armstrong.
Dave Hentschel: His story was incredible.
Dave Hentschel: He had survived cancer.
Dave Hentschel: He came back to dominate the most grueling cycling race on the earth.
Dave Hentschel: People didn't just see him as a champion, they saw Lance as an inspiration.
Dave Hentschel: But in 2012, the truth came out.
Dave Hentschel: After years of denial, investigations revealed that Armstrong had been using performance-enhancing drugs all along.
Dave Hentschel: Not only that, but there was a sophisticated system behind it of doping and then blood transfusions and then efforts to avoid detection.
Dave Hentschel: And the result?
Dave Hentschel: He was stripped of all seven Tour de France titles.
Dave Hentschel: Every single one gone.
Dave Hentschel: Think about that.
Dave Hentschel: Years of victory, years of training, global admiration, a legacy he built over time, and it's all erased.
Dave Hentschel: Why?
Dave Hentschel: Because he didn't compete according to the rules.
Dave Hentschel: That's what Paul is getting at right here.
Dave Hentschel: Armstrong rode the race, he crossed the finish line, he stood on that podium, but in the end, he was not crowned.
Dave Hentschel: Because in God's economy, it's not just about the results, it's about righteousness.
Dave Hentschel: It's not just about achieving something, it's about also achieving it in the right way.
Dave Hentschel: And so the question for me here is sobering.
Dave Hentschel: Am I trying to reach my spiritual goals, growth or influence or success?
Dave Hentschel: But am I cutting corners in things like character and truth and obedience in the meantime?
Dave Hentschel: Because you can build something that looks like victory, and still in the end, you'll find out it doesn't count.
Dave Hentschel: Because the crown goes not to the one who appears to win, but to the one who runs the race God's way.
Dave Hentschel: So that's the athlete.
Dave Hentschel: Third, the farmer.
Dave Hentschel: The farmer has an exhortation here that's really clear.
Dave Hentschel: Be hard working, be diligent.
Dave Hentschel: Get up early, stay up late during those seasons.
Dave Hentschel: What's the main character trait here?
Dave Hentschel: I would say it's industriousness.
Dave Hentschel: And if I do that, there's a promise for me.
Dave Hentschel: What's the promise?
Dave Hentschel: Well, I get to eat.
Dave Hentschel: I get to enjoy the first share of the crop.
Dave Hentschel: I get the fruit of my labor.
Dave Hentschel: So here's my chart.
Dave Hentschel: Exhortation, be industrious.
Dave Hentschel: Promise, you will enjoy the fruit of your labor.
Dave Hentschel: A few years ago, there was a lot of attention on modern farming through people like Zach Johnson, a fourth-generation farmer who shows what the work is really like.
Dave Hentschel: And one of the things he emphasizes is this farming is not dramatic work, it's daily work.
Dave Hentschel: It's no work that involves like shortcuts.
Dave Hentschel: No.
Dave Hentschel: You don't plant seeds on Monday and harvest on Friday.
Dave Hentschel: There are long days of preparing the soil, planting carefully, monitoring the conditions, fixing your equipment, watching the weather, and then waiting and waiting and more waiting.
Dave Hentschel: And even when you don't see anything happening above the ground, something underneath the ground is happening under the surface there.
Dave Hentschel: Roots are forming, growth is beginning.
Dave Hentschel: But it's invisible at the beginning, isn't it?
Dave Hentschel: Here's the key a good farmer doesn't dig up the seed every few days to check on it.
Dave Hentschel: He trusts the process.
Dave Hentschel: He keeps working, he stays faithful.
Dave Hentschel: That's what Paul is getting at right here.
Dave Hentschel: Steady plotting.
Dave Hentschel: It's the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.
Dave Hentschel: In the Christian life, it's not just about intensity, it's about consistency.
Dave Hentschel: It's not just about the big moments, it's about quiet faithfulness every day, over time, stuff that nobody sees.
Dave Hentschel: You pray and you don't see immediate results.
Dave Hentschel: You disciple somebody and their growth seems really slow.
Dave Hentschel: You fight sin and then your progress feels incremental.
Dave Hentschel: But the farmer reminds us God's work often is happening under the surface, under the ground, before it ever shows up above the ground.
Dave Hentschel: So Paul says, be industrious.
Dave Hentschel: Don't quit.
Dave Hentschel: Keep sowing, keep trusting, keep laboring, because in due season there will be a harvest if you don't give up.
Dave Hentschel: So back to my chart.
Dave Hentschel: All of these promises are supposed to be motivators for you to follow the Lord Jesus.
Dave Hentschel: All three represent a person committed to something much greater than him or herself, willing to sacrifice, willing to endure for a greater cause, for a greater goal.
Dave Hentschel: One commentator summed it up this way: quote, the metaphors, when duly pondered, suggests that beyond warfare is victory.
Dave Hentschel: And beyond athletic effort is a prize.
Dave Hentschel: And beyond agricultural labor, there's a crop.
Dave Hentschel: And in the same way, Timothy's share of hardship will be followed by a reward.
Dave Hentschel: God's greater reward.
Dave Hentschel: And so will yours.
Dave Hentschel: So will yours.
Dave Hentschel: That's point three.
Dave Hentschel: How do we prevent gospel drifts?
Dave Hentschel: Well, we have to depend on God.
Dave Hentschel: We have to entrust the truth to others, and we need to embrace the cost of real ministry.
Dave Hentschel: And then fourthly, we have to reflect deeply on what really matters.
Dave Hentschel: One more point.
Dave Hentschel: Look at verse 7 as Paul wraps up this section.
Dave Hentschel: He says, Timothy, think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.
Dave Hentschel: Here we have an exhortation to think, to consider with an intensified exhortation.
Dave Hentschel: And when you do that, you will have what from the Lord?
Dave Hentschel: He says, understanding.
Dave Hentschel: What Paul is talking about here is the theological doctrine of illumination.
Dave Hentschel: It is the work of the Holy Spirit to, through our minds, give us insight into the text of Scripture.
Dave Hentschel: It is the answer to the prayer of the psalmist, Lord, open my eyes that I might see wonderful things in your word.
Dave Hentschel: Archibald Alexander, the first president of Princeton, said it this way: quote, all we need is to have the illumination of the Spirit to accompany the reading or preaching of the word, to cause us to see wonderful things in texts which have often been heard or read without emotion.
Dave Hentschel: And in the contemplation of them, the mind is filled with unspeakable joy.
Dave Hentschel: Think, reflect, meditate, ponder.
Dave Hentschel: I emphasize this because some people think Christianity means disengaging the mind and just feeling with the heart.
Dave Hentschel: And that is not true.
Dave Hentschel: Or it's only half true.
Dave Hentschel: Of course we have the heart, but Christianity is a religion that also taxes and engages the mind.
Dave Hentschel: The mind is actually the entry point to the heart and the soul.
Dave Hentschel: We are to renew our what?
Dave Hentschel: Minds.
Dave Hentschel: We're to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Dave Hentschel: God has given us minds.
Dave Hentschel: He's given us the ability to reason.
Dave Hentschel: The Christian faith is not disengaging our mental faculties and launching into some mystical experience.
Dave Hentschel: God's people must think.
Dave Hentschel: But many Christians don't do this.
Dave Hentschel: Mark Noel, in his scathing rebuke, wrote a book called The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, when he said basically the scandal of the evangelical mind is there's not much of a mind.
Dave Hentschel: And there is a trend that he observed, and a trend that seems to be getting more and more acute in the younger generations to emphasize only the emotional, sometimes to a fault.
Dave Hentschel: There's that phrase, follow your heart.
Dave Hentschel: But the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, right?
Dave Hentschel: The heart is one thing, but that's not the only part I have.
Dave Hentschel: Or people say, you know, I just want a job that I love.
Dave Hentschel: Sometimes it's like, dude, you gotta go to work.
Dave Hentschel: Like it's called work.
Dave Hentschel: Or even the I've noticed the way we express our opinions nowadays, even in like not heart areas, we say, I feel like.
Dave Hentschel: Notice that.
Dave Hentschel: I feel like.
Dave Hentschel: What do you mean you feel like?
Dave Hentschel: What do you think?
Dave Hentschel: I want the feels.
Dave Hentschel: I love the feels.
Dave Hentschel: Give me some Mariah Carey.
Dave Hentschel: It gives me the feels.
Dave Hentschel: Now there's nothing inherently wrong with feelings.
Dave Hentschel: But the problem is the feels are sometimes driving the bus when they should be in the back of the bus.
Dave Hentschel: So if that's you, what you need to know is yes, there are parts of you that desire to feel the feelings and values, feeling safe, and all of that.
Dave Hentschel: But my dear friend, that's not the only part of you.
Dave Hentschel: There are other parts of you too.
Dave Hentschel: There are other values that you have too.
Dave Hentschel: Now, sometimes we swing the pendulum, right?
Dave Hentschel: The older generation had exactly the opposite problem.
Dave Hentschel: They had no idea how to self-reflect and have really an awareness of their feelings.
Dave Hentschel: And I'm grossly generalizing here.
Dave Hentschel: That's not true of every single person.
Dave Hentschel: But sometimes the older generation struggled with the opposite thing.
Dave Hentschel: And sometimes, if that's you, like you need to hear, God gave you your feelings, God gave you your emotions.
Dave Hentschel: It's okay for you to have a feeling.
Dave Hentschel: It's okay if something bad happens to you as a Christian and you say to God, Ah, God, I wouldn't have preferred this, right?
Dave Hentschel: It's okay for you to express that.
Dave Hentschel: That's if you can be honest with your feelings, it's okay.
Dave Hentschel: Read the Psalms.
Dave Hentschel: But for everyone, we all need to remember the mind is the part of us that is in control.
Dave Hentschel: Paul's point here is that Timothy should think because Christianity requires thoughtful engagement and the feelings will follow.
Dave Hentschel: As Christian leaders, we must be reflective, not reactive.
Dave Hentschel: Understanding is given by the Lord, but it's going to take effort.
Dave Hentschel: So Paul says, I want you to think about these things.
Dave Hentschel: And what that means is slowing down and meditating and taking time.
Dave Hentschel: Recently, I read an excellent book called Deep Work by Cal Newport.
Dave Hentschel: It's a fascinating book about the need in an age of constant texting and emailing to set aside undistracted time to study and to do what he calls deep work.
Dave Hentschel: His thesis is that to produce at your peak level, you need to work for extended periods of time, not in front of the final four, not distracted by all kinds of multitasking things.
Dave Hentschel: He says you need to work for extended periods of time in a cave somewhere with full concentration on a single task where you are free from distraction.
Dave Hentschel: Now apply that to your life.
Dave Hentschel: What does that look like?
Dave Hentschel: What does that look like spiritually speaking?
Dave Hentschel: This is holy week.
Dave Hentschel: This is the most important week of the Christian calendar.
Dave Hentschel: Will you choose to set aside any time this week to think about, to meditate on?
Dave Hentschel: The work of your Savior on your behalf.
Dave Hentschel: When will you do that?
Dave Hentschel: God's people are a thinking people.
Dave Hentschel: So Paul says, I want you to reflect on what deeply matters.
Dave Hentschel: That's how you prevent drift.
Dave Hentschel: So how do we do it?
Dave Hentschel: How do we prevent the gospel drift?
Dave Hentschel: And how do we hold the line?
Dave Hentschel: Well, first we have to depend on God because it's his strength.
Dave Hentschel: Secondly, we have to run the power sweep.
Dave Hentschel: We have to entrust the truth to others.
Dave Hentschel: Third, we've got to embrace the cost of real ministry.
Dave Hentschel: And finally, we've got to switch on our minds and reflect deeply on what really matters.
Dave Hentschel: Church, let's be strengthened by grace.
Dave Hentschel: Let's endure the cost.
Dave Hentschel: Let's commit ourselves to passing the faith on so that long after you and I are gone, the gospel continues to go forth from right here on this corner.
Dave Hentschel: One more story.
Dave Hentschel: See, history doesn't only give us examples of drift, it also gives us some really exciting examples of recovery from drift.
Dave Hentschel: In the late 20th century, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary faced its own theological challenges.
Dave Hentschel: And a generation of leaders made a deliberate effort to return the school back to biblical fidelity.
Dave Hentschel: It was called the great conservative resurgence of the 1980s.
Dave Hentschel: We're talking about theological conservativism.
Dave Hentschel: We're not talking about politics right now.
Dave Hentschel: This conservative resurgence did not happen accidentally, though.
Dave Hentschel: It happened because people took seriously the responsibility to preserve and to pass on the truth.
Dave Hentschel: It took more than a decade for this to happen.
Dave Hentschel: It started in 1979.
Dave Hentschel: They came up with a strategy.
Dave Hentschel: The strategy was that they were going to get the majority of the delegates to go to the Southern Baptist Convention and they were going to finally elect a president of the SBC who believed the Bible.
Dave Hentschel: And in 1979, through a slim majority, in a surprise upset, Adrian Rogers, a stalwart conservative, was elected to the presidency of the SBC.
Dave Hentschel: That strategy of electing a conservative president allowed that particular person to elect all the other trustees on all the other committees.
Dave Hentschel: So Lifeway Christian Books has a board, and Southern Seminary has a board, and New Orleans Seminary has a board, and you know the Ethics and Religious Liberty Committee had a board, hundreds and hundreds of trustees.
Dave Hentschel: All of them essentially left their faith in the Bible, all of them liberal.
Dave Hentschel: So the president had the strategy of as soon as a liberal term expires, I'm going to plop a conservative down there.
Dave Hentschel: Plop them down there.
Dave Hentschel: And each year, the majority of Southern Baptists would show up to the convention and they would elect another conservative president year after year after year.
Dave Hentschel: Since 1979, they have never elected a non-conservative president since then.
Dave Hentschel: And it took them probably about six years to see any difference at all.
Dave Hentschel: And slowly, like around 85, 86, all of a sudden these boards were majority populated by conservatives.
Dave Hentschel: And they started raising some issues and some concerns with what was happening in their books and in their seminaries and in the institutions.
Dave Hentschel: And they started making a difference.
Dave Hentschel: And so year after year, slowly over time, those terms of the liberal theologians would expire, and the majority of the boards became conservative and they started to gain control.
Dave Hentschel: And slowly they replaced each board with a Bible-believing Christian majority.
Dave Hentschel: All of a sudden, faculty members who couldn't previously sign the doctrinal statements were forced to either sign the doctrinal statement or lose your position.
Dave Hentschel: And faculty members started to go away and be replaced by conservative faculty members at all six of their seminaries.
Dave Hentschel: Together, in 1979, they saved the largest Protestant denomination in the United States of America.
Dave Hentschel: There are 50,000 Southern Baptist churches.
Dave Hentschel: There has never been another denomination to do that.
Dave Hentschel: Every other denomination, including ours, had to break off and start something new.
Dave Hentschel: No one has been able to turn the ship all the way around 180 degrees and turn it back to the truth.
Dave Hentschel: But they did it.
Dave Hentschel: And they did it by applying the principles here.
Dave Hentschel: Thousands now are supported missionaries through the new SBC.
Dave Hentschel: They have 12 million church members right now.
Dave Hentschel: They stopped the drift and they came back to the truth.
Dave Hentschel: And one of the heroes was President Al Moeller, who lived through it all.
Dave Hentschel: And he says this it was a reformation achieved at an incredibly high cost.
Dave Hentschel: The seminary was founded about the same time as Millington.
Dave Hentschel: And one of their founders wrote a hymn for the students who were preparing for gospel ministry at the time.
Dave Hentschel: And as we think about this hymn, I want you to think about it because it was meant to remind the students of their mission to proclaim Christ and to pass the faith to the next generation.
Dave Hentschel: So I want to close with these words as we think about these words as a charge for us as well.
Dave Hentschel: So let me read you the words of this hymn as the worship team comes back on stage to lead us in one more song.
Dave Hentschel: The hymn says this Soldiers of Christ, in truth arrayed, a world in ruins needs your aid.
Dave Hentschel: A world by sin destroyed and dead, a world for which the Savior bled.
Dave Hentschel: His gospel to the lost proclaim.
Dave Hentschel: Good news for all in Jesus' name.
Dave Hentschel: Let light upon the darkness break that sinners from their death may wake.
Dave Hentschel: Morning and evening sow the seed.
Dave Hentschel: God's grace, the effort shall succeed.
Dave Hentschel: Seed times of tears have oft been found with sheaves of joy and plenty crowned.
Dave Hentschel: Church, may that be true of us as well.
Dave Hentschel: Amen.
Dave Hentschel: Would you pray with me?
Dave Hentschel: Heavenly Father, how grateful we are for the gospel that's been entrusted to us.
Dave Hentschel: We confess this morning that we are weak, but you are strong.
Dave Hentschel: We confess that your grace is sufficient, though.
Dave Hentschel: So would you strengthen us, Lord, to live faithfully as your people in our day?
Dave Hentschel: Help us to guard the truth, to endure hardship for Christ, and to pass this faith on to our kids and grandkids, so that the gospel will continue long after we're gone.
Dave Hentschel: And may our church be a place where your truth is preserved and where your truth is proclaimed generation after generation until you come.
Dave Hentschel: For we ask it all through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Dave Hentschel: And everyone says,