SPEAKER_00 0:00

Brian's gonna be preaching out of Second Timothy chapter four today. You'd open your Bible. If you would stand in reverence to the Word of God, it is read. Second Timothy chapter four, verses one through five. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound teaching, sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away from their from their ears, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths. But you be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. You may be seated. Pastor Brian, would you please come.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Father, we thank you for your word. We ask you that you would grow us through it, that you would challenge us, that it would do the work that you have called, that you sovereignly intend in this time. Lead and guide all of our hearts to be in worship. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Well, brothers and sisters, today is special. Today's a wonderful day. Today's the Lord's day. This is a day we have set aside by the Lord's grace and providence to come together for the worship of our triune God. It's the highlight of the Christian's week, as you well know. Today for me, it's also humbling. It's encouraging and it's sobering in light of the weapon we have for today as we continue through 2 Timothy. It's an exciting and encouraging day because I have been gifted with a charge to preach the Word of God. I am keenly aware, thankfully, that there is nothing in me that deserves this task. There is nothing in me that is worthy of this vital undertaking. There is nothing in me that can accomplish any of this kind of thing on my own or in my own strength. It's also thrilling, though, to be able to stand before you and say, thank you, God. I am humbled by your call for me to preach the written word to your beloved people. And it is humbling and sobering. Every time I step up into the pulpit, I'm keenly aware of the feebleness, the inadequacy, and the desperation that I have for God, for the Holy Spirit to superintend, to speak through me to you as well as to my own heart. I still get a sense of nervousness and anticipation. Praise be to God. I can't imagine taking on this mighty work without being fully aware of the weight of what this means. The very souls and lives of the hearers may be at stake today. I know this. This is why I pray regularly that it would purely be a healthy fear of the Lord that comes to me. Therefore, it is truly wonderfully sobering as I prepare for this wonderful gospel work. Not sobering in the worldly sense of things, but I would call it joyfully heavy. Joyfully heavy unto the laborer given what is at stake each and every time. The word of God is exposed and we call it expounded upon or taught or interpreted. One of the things that the reformers of the 16th century rightly sought to re-establish was the centrality of the preaching on the Lord's Day, Lord's Day mornings. After studying the scriptures, they were convicted, like the early church was to make sure that the preached word was really the central event or the main focus on Lord's Day mornings. Not merely so that some error-prone, fallible man can come up and speak. That's not it. You know, it's not so that he can hold the attention of an audience or some other man-centered type reason. But simply because it is God's word being read, described, impressed upon, taught, heralded, and Lord willing, applied. That's the difference, by the way, between teaching and preaching. Preaching is what I would call urgent. It's a call to action. As I've said before, it's like, if you can recall history, it's like Paul Revere riding into town, shouting at the top of his lungs, what? The British are coming! Right? It's urgency, it's fervency. That's what preaching is like. That's heralding. Teaching is more akin to him coming into town, gathering the troops around a table for a description of the battlefield and the danger of the soon to come and trying to figure out exactly what that looks like, as if they had more time. And so, in light of all of that, I want to say thank you again. Thank you for allowing me to stand up here and open the word and seek to expound upon it through preaching. I appreciate your loving kindness for giving me the opportunity on the Lord's Day to be able to do this week after week, this great work. So the weapon for today, in light of all that, is, of course, proclamation. Preach the word, Paul says. And so we have proclamation as our weapon. And yeah, at the outset, you may be asking yourself, well, how am I going to apply this to my life? What's my weapon here? I'm not a preacher. Well, as we go through our points today that you have in your handout and we expose the truth of the word, I'll be giving you a charge that you that will hopefully be able to answer what your role is in this work of wielding the weapon of proclamation as a soldier of Christ, even if you're not a preacher. And so today we will do this. We will go over these seven points as we relish in the preached word of God together. And so let's do that. It'll expose itself. So let's dig in. Point number one: the gravitas of the work of proclamation. You see this in verse one. Look at verse one again. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing in his kingdom. Gravitas. So gravitas is a Latin word that you can define as high seriousness. Lofty seriousness. As we see in verse 1, the charge that Paul reminds Timothy that he has in being a minister of the gospel, a preacher of the word, is we call it weighty. It's heavy on the shoulders. It's very serious. It's incredibly important. That's why he says, I solemnly charge you, Timothy. So there's solemnity behind the call and the command to embark in this vital work. Remember, Paul is inspired by the very Spirit of God as he's writing this. And so this teaching, it's teaching us that this task, this task has been invoked by the highest possible authority. I appeal to, is kind of what Paul is doing. Paul invokes this task by the very name of God the Father and God the Son. There is no higher authority nor charge that can ever be given to men. By no undername, or no name under heaven any greater than that. And so therefore there's this great sense of solemnity in the work and task of bringing the Word of God to bear on the people of God. Why, again, look at verse 1. We first realize that the ever-present and omniscient gaze of the great God of heaven is always on the man of God who has been appointed to this labor. Let me tell you, that's difficult to remember day by day. That's hard. And so this is done in the presence of and before man, but the great unction of the preaching of the word is knowing that the very presence of the God of all creation is in and amongst the people. The very author of the word that is being proclaimed is ever present as his word goes out. This necessarily brings with it what I would call an extreme seriousness. Extreme seriousness, especially to the one who is charged with this task. Next, we see that it should also be remembered that this is done before the great judge of men, Jesus Christ our Lord. And so as a father looks on us as his word is being proclaimed, Christ is there as king and judge. Now, in this, I don't think Paul is trying to just scare Timothy, okay? He's not just trying to scare him with words that will say something to the effect of you're going to quickly be zapped if you get it wrong, okay? I don't think that's that, but but that the one, the one God, the one, the one who has the very right and power to judge the living and the dead, is sovereignly present, lovingly present, as his gospel is proclaimed. And so this is again a great and solemn truth, since there is judgment coming. So he's talking about the one who's coming to judge. Now that right there should give Timothy and any other preacher a great desire and an urgency in his preaching in light of the fact that the great king and judge is ever present, and one day he will judge all people one way or another. Therefore, again, that's why I use the word gravitas. It's high seriousness, it's heavy. The sermon time is huge, therefore. We can never forget this. We can never forget that Christ, the judge of the living and the dead, he's coming again. He's coming and he will rightly and perfectly judge the hearts and lives of all people. It has been given to Christ that he be the judge of all. It's his work, his perfect work to accomplish on what we call that day. And so the preacher has to know this as he preaches. That's the urgency. It could be at any moment that the Lord returns for his bride. And there is no doubt that there are going to be those that hear the preacher even regularly and yet are not ready. There are those even in the church, as we learned a few weeks ago, who have placed themselves maybe in the church, but they are not a people that Christ has placed there. And so they must be warned. Call them to repentance. Christ is coming again, and this time he's coming as the perfect judge, the sword. And no man, no woman shall stand before this judge. All will be on their knees. Some in trembling fear for what they have done and what is therefore coming to them. For others, for those who are in Christ, they'll be on their knees from reverence and awe as we are excitedly awaiting and viewing the return of the King of kings. One day Christ will appear, brothers and sisters. He will come. He will appear in the same way that the book of Acts tells us. And it's going to absolutely be glorious. It will be wonderful. It will be both the worst day and the best day for humanity. For those who do not love his appearing, there will be such fear that they will seek the mountains that fall on them, only to find no solace and no escape from the judgment of their sin of rejecting Jesus Christ. And they will seethe. It's not like they're just going to go, oh no, I didn't realize it, and I love you, Jesus. It's not going to be that. They will seethe at the appearance of this great king and judge. But again, for others, for his people, this would be the greatest day that we could ever behold. As their king and Savior comes, riding on the clouds with a mighty proclamation of his grand entrance and this return, his people, we will join him and we will agree with his judgments that are sure and perfect. His glory will be shining brightly and his people will be overwhelmed. Therefore, therefore, this has to be one of the monumental reasons why the preacher is willing to stand up day by day and preach the gospel of grace that demands allegiance to the king through repentance and faith. That's why there's great seriousness and gravity in the task, knowing that the king could return at any moment. Imagine talking to your neighbor if you knew the Lord Jesus was coming within five minutes. How would that change the dynamic of your conversation with a neighbor who doesn't know Jesus? That's kind of Paul's charge to the preacher. You don't know. The great king and judge. He's always present and he's coming. Preach the truth. The truth needs to be told, it needs to be proclaimed. People need to hear it often and over and over and over and over again. And it needs to be done with what I would call fire in the pulpit, with urgency, a surety of the truth, and a pleading with the people to respond to the grace of Christ. Because if you and I ever get to a place where we can ever say, oh yeah, I've heard that before. Oh yeah, yeah, I've heard the gospel, yeah, yeah, yeah. Christ is coming, is going to come, judge. Okay, I know all that stuff. Okay, let's move on. If that's you, then please first repent for not loving the truth of his word. And then beg him to give you a love for his word and a love for his appearing, as we see at the end of verse 8 for next week's passage. Beg him to give you a love, like, I don't know, a three-year-old who, you know what I'm talking about, who loves that book. They love it so well that they could literally quote the entire thing to you, but still begs you to read it to them every night. And what happens if you read it wrong? Mm-hmm. They're gonna rebuke you. Let that be the countenance of the church when the gospel is preached. Because the king is coming. And he's here now. Some here today are ready. And some might not be. Who are you? What a serious work we undertake when the word of God is opened in the presence of God, with the power of God, and as we pray that it leads us closer to the side of God. Knowing that God Himself is witness to this work is also the reason why those who preach the word will not waver on the truth. Yes, I am preaching to you today the Word of God. Calling us all to submit to His Word out of reverence and awe for Him and His goodness. But the ultimate reason that I preach Christ and Him crucified, the reason that by God's grace and his provision, that I will not shy away from the difficult things, that I will not skip over passages, the reason is because of who the ultimate audience is today. I love you. But I am preaching this passage before the God of the universe. For those preachers who skip over hard truths, for those preachers who tweak the word or the gospel, for those who change the word and what the word is saying to, I don't know, for the pleasure of man, I fear what is coming for them on that day. And so here you go, Prairie Baptist Church. Here's your weapon. Each Lord's Day morning, as we all wake, Sunday mornings, I want to charge you with this. Remember the gravitas, the high seriousness of what will soon take place in your life when the Word of God is opened and exposed to your heart. There is nothing like the preaching of the Word. Doesn't matter who's doing it, as long as they're doing it faithfully. I mean, the congregational singing is great. The prayer is needed, the fellowship is beneficial, these things are commanded in the Word. But the preaching of the Word is vital according to His Word. And I don't just say that because that's what I do on a regular basis. That's what the Bible says. I mean, just give you one quick passage that you probably know, Romans 10, 14. How then will they call on him whom they have not believed, and how will they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? And so beg God each Sunday morning that you would come to this worship gathering ready to hear what the word has to say as it's exposed to your heart. And I would encourage you to begin this process throughout the week and especially on Saturday evening. Be ready to hear from God. Be ready to receive the one and only truth. Be rested. Go to bed early. And be ready to be fed eternal importance. Pray for the preaching of the word each morning. Pray that your heart would be crushed. That it would be challenged, that it would be encouraged, that it would be sharpened by what is being taught that day, given what this passage says about the seriousness of what's taken place. Pray that the preached word would cause you to be ready for and in fact love the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's the thing, I kid you not, there are people who call themselves Christians who believe they don't need to be taught. They don't need to be taught from somebody else. Calvin said that all our wisdom is contained in the scriptures. If that's true, how could we think that we have nothing to profit from the preaching of our only real wisdom? And so prepare yourselves each and every Sunday morning for the preaching of the Word with the high seriousness behind it. Second, let's look at the object of his proclamation, verse 2. Now I'm gonna say something probably incredibly obvious to you, but as Paul says in the beginning of verse 2, preachers are to preach the word, the Bible. Not a book, not a mere book written by a nice guy or a popular speaker, not a wise saying or a new idea for church growth or what your purpose is for a Christian, but the very word of God. That and that alone is sufficient to stir up the salvation of the lost and to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Paul says in Romans 1.16 that he is unashamed of the gospel. And so he goes on to tell us in that that it is the unashamed proclamation of the gospel that is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe. And how do we hear? How do we know the gospel? The written word of God, proclaimed. And so I would say the Christian preacher has no right to preach anything other than God's word on Sunday mornings. He is to preach the whole counsel of God without wavering, without cavering to the pressure of the weakness and frailties of his own heart, nor what the culture demands of him. What a comfort it is to have the very word of God to preach. I'm so thankful that I am not obliged to come before you week after week with the trivialities of the world or with some pretend wisdom from this small mind and a large head. It is the very word of God that I bring to you. I mean, think of it. When a natural disaster strikes in this world, what do I bring to you? What does anybody bring to you? I am charged to preach the word of God to you in the midst of a natural disaster. When sickness forces its way into your life, I am charged to preach the word of God to you. When famine comes to our land and our homes or pestilence, I am charged to preach the very comforting words of the sovereign God to you. When false teachings abound, I am charged with the preaching of the truth of the word to you, as I also rebuke what is false by it. When death comes knocking, I am once again charged with the preaching of the eternal word of God as a balm to your soul. Not five ways to do this. Seven ways to have this by Friday. Not seeking some self help prescription of what is your purpose or nor am I called to be relevant according to the world. Skinny jeans and a flannel, and you know all that. No. Or whatever's popular, I don't even know. I am called to preach the word alone to you. It is what you and I desperately need to hear if we're going to have life and walk godly before our Lord and His creation. And that's always going to be relevant, even if it doesn't come with laser lights and crazy funny stories. What a joy we have. Think of it this way: what a joy we have holding every single thing we need for life and eternal godliness in our hands every moment of the day. What a joy we have in being able to come together each and every Lord's Day morning to hear the words of God proclaimed with utter surety that it'll always be precisely what we need. And so again, my charge to you is to just once again go to God. Beg Him that you would love the Word of God in such a way that the preaching of it would literally be the highlight of your week, even if it is not done in perfection, or in the mode, or maybe even in the ability that you prefer. Beg God that the preaching of the word even from a failed man would be a delight to your soul. That as David said in Psalm 19, his word is like a honeycomb, in that it would be a honeycomb to your palate, or like refined gold in your life. And here's the thing: beg God that you would love it so deeply that your preacher would be edified by your delight of it. That your preacher would be edified by your delight of his word. You see, I believe the congregation has such a profound impact on the preaching of the word that they can take an average or mediocre preacher and make him great for the Lord. Not because they flatter his delivery, by no means, nor his knowledge. But as the congregation responds to God and his word in a worshipful way in the service and especially in all of life, the preacher is edified in such a way that his heart is stirred to even more diligent study and preparation. And his passion will just exude, knowing that it is not him alone that loves the word, that his king and master has given to us. The word is that which gathers the church, it is that which calls us unto worship, it is that which compels us to pray and teaches us how to pray. It is the word that compels us to sing it, and it is that which we fellowship around. What else could I possibly bring before you today to proclaim? Delight in it. Third. The occasion for the proclamation, also found in verse 2. The preacher is always to be ready to proclaim the gospel. You've heard that, right? In season and out. That doesn't necessarily mean he's going to be able to preach an hour and a half long exposition or a detailed sermon given, you know, in a moment's notice. Yes, the minister of the gospel is to be ready to defend the faith and to proclaim the truth at a given moment. Any given moment. That may be, you know, late Saturday night. Oh, I'm sick. An elder. Sorry, brothers, if that happens. If the Lord chooses to make that available, though, we've got to be ready. But I would say what this passage is really driving at is that we are to preach the truth no matter how people may respond. Chrysostom, an early church leader, says about this particular passage. He says, just as the fountains, though none may draw from them, still flow on, and the rivers, though none may drink of them, still run, so we must do all on our own part in speaking, though none give heed to us. So what he means is whether or not people are willing to receive the word, whether or not they condemn you for its truth or love each and every word that proceeds from your mouth, either way, in season or out, we preach Christ and Him crucified. We proclaim the whole counsel of God, whether it be through the book of Genesis or Revelation, whether it be Leviticus or Hebrews, whether it be Isaiah or Romans, we preach what our God has spoken. And the wise preacher knows that there will be times when the world will tolerate what he has to say in light of the word, of the word of God. He knows that there will be times when the church will be overjoyed when the word is proclaimed. That there is a what we could call a springtime, and you know, in season out, a springtime of growth. And the people is just as, I don't know, that you look around Grant County and the wildflowers and on these hills just out of town, these blue flowers start blooming in the spring, summertime, and it's just beauty. So the people in this season will appreciate God's preached word. But the preacher also knows that fall and winter are coming. When the wildflowers will wilt and recede and bear no distinct growth or beauty, and it would seem as though they're gone for good. So it will be like for the people of the world when they seek to harm the preacher, for what they would say is this unseasonable preaching of what they cannot endure. As the word of God is spoken to their sour hearts. Here's the thing: so, with some, even in the gathering of the saints, they will not endure the self-perceived thought of what they consider out-of-season preaching. Maybe it speaks too much of sin or depravity or judgment or hell. They will seek to divide and devise with rumors and gossips. They will infuse a word or two of doubt and complain, and this can grow like gangrene in the church, as the church ceases to desire the word of God. But the man of God who has been called into this work stands strong and preaches the same when things are ripe, growing, beautiful, and fruitful, the same as he does when the leaves of faith are falling and the branches are barren of fruit. Because the cold heart of those who do not delight in the word have begun to die off. In season or out, the word must be preached. Under favorable conditions or under attack. The preaching of the word must continue. So again, my charge to you, Prairie Baptist Church, is to beg God that you would never fall prey to a season of closed ears to the Word of God. Pray that God would grant you hearts and minds that are driven by the proclamation of the truth of God. Pray that you would hunger and thirst for the Word of God as you hunger and thirst for righteousness. Pray that you would be that voice in the church that always speaks fondly of the preached word. Again, not because the preacher is good or bad, but because the word is perfect. And pray for your elders that we would remain steadfast no matter the season. Fourth, the work of the proclamation. Verse 2. You know, back in the early 20th century, there was a man who preached the word with passion. In our day and age, we definitely wouldn't say that he had a preaching voice. But this man loved the word and he loved to preach the word of God to the people of God. And when he preached, he took his cues from great reformers and Puritans of old, pleading with God that he would have what was called the authority. The authority in his preaching, meaning the presence and power of the Spirit of God. He wouldn't preach it without, he wouldn't preach the word without it, knowing that without the authority in his preaching, his preaching would be in vain. And so he would beg God that the Spirit of the Lord would be upon him. This is why this man, Martin Lloyd Jones, called preaching logic on fire. Logic on fire. I know I've mentioned that to you before, but isn't that such a great phrase for preaching and proclaiming the truth of the word? John Piper calls it expository exaltation. That one's a little deeper. Great phrase. But I think Lloyd Jones really captures the heart of what preaching is and really what sets it apart from any other teaching on the Bible. Logic preaching is declaring the Word of God by exposing its truth to our minds and hearts in such a way that compels us to respond. But that response doesn't have quite the excitement when the preaching isn't on fire. Maybe we could call that urgent enthusiasm. So, in light of what we know about the necessity of preaching, there should always be an urgency in its task, and the preacher knows the, remember that word, gravitas behind what he is doing, and the words he is exposing necessarily has an enthusiasm for what he's preaching. Not that it's to be manufactured by no means, but that's just what happens. It's a natural response for the man who has been impacted by the gospel and has the authority of the Spirit behind him. And this logic on fire means that the preacher will be doing as Paul says here, reproving, rebuking, and exhorting as he preaches the word of God, emphasizing the gospel of grace contained therein. And as we learned last time, reproving comes as a word shapes and molds your hearts and your motivations. It challenges you to greater depths of insight and nudges you to richer theological passions. Rebuking is where the logic of the word proclaimed with the urgent passion of the proclaimer hits you in such a way that you're compelled to repent of sin and then hotly pursue the things of Christ instead. A rebuke is, by the way, one of the greatest results of preaching that can take place. When the word is proclaimed with passion and urgency and the sinner is rebuked, godliness is the result of such an occasion. It's a transaction of right preaching with fervent passion that leads to confessed sin in a corrected life. And that brings immense glory to God, unity in the body, and joy to all who love Christ. The word exhortation or exhort here is perfect, I would say, for our definition of the work of preaching the word. To exhort is to strongly encourage. Or if he heard it said to intensely urge somebody to do something. It's a verb that describes the action that takes place when the scriptures hit the hearer in such a way that they are then encouraged to hang on. They're thrilled to hotly pursue Christ and righteousness. They are excited to hear more. Have you ever been in that place where it just hits you and you're like, oh, I need more of this? And they're urged to endure in life no matter what comes. Pray Baptist Church. I charge you to be prepared each Sunday morning by coming to the church ready to be rebuked, maybe. Ready to have that reproof, that slight correction. Ready to be exhorted, thrilled, and encouraged. Because the word of God is being exposed. It is not the preacher who does this work even as he proclaims its truth. It is a very God of heaven who comes and condescends during this time in such a way that the man or woman of God is led to be overwhelmed with the exhortation of his word. And so be prepared to receive that. Fifth, the attitude behind the proclamation. Still in verse 2. This preaching and proclaiming of the word of God is to be done with both great patience and great instruction. Or as the King James renders it, I love this, one of my favorite words in all of Scripture when thinking about the Lord towards his people, the preacher is to preach with long suffering. Why? Because it is not in the preacher's heart or a power to change a single heart. Preacher cannot do this. It is not in the preacher's power to convict of one little sin, not even a white lie, will be repented of by the oratory skill of any man. It is the word of God, through the power of the Spirit of God, unto the glory of God, that changes hearts and causes a person to turn from sin and turn to Christ. And the preacher's job is to just proclaim this sufficiency day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, with passion, knowing that one day the Lord may grant repentance to his hearers and an abundance of joy will come to all as this takes place. With great instruction, Paul says here in the passage. If a preacher preaches with passion but does not have the logic of the word ingrained within him, then it will end up being a fruitless venture since he is not able to point people to grace as he calls them to repentance. If there's going to be a passionate plea for someone to flee to Christ, then the avenue and the way must be shown through sound doctrinal instruction. You see, the preacher's doctrine must be the kind that does show the deep dark depravity of the sinner's soul in need, first his own. But at the same time, it lights up that narrow path as a runway and grabs the sinner, if you will, by the hand, pleading with them, follow me down this path. This path that is shining. That has a sovereign and gracious figure at the other end. As Paul says, the preacher must be so filled with patience and great instruction or sound doctrine and passion that the hearer just simply cannot sit unstirred or unmoved because they're in Christ. Either way they grow to hate or to love. Either they grow to hate the way, you could call it, through the patient instructing exhortation, or there begins to dawn upon them such a grand light of such beauty that they are drawn to the way by the author of the way. One of the two happens. There is much at stake involved in the Sunday morning. We call it the exposition of the word. Again, just exposing it to your hearts. The trusting preacher who preaches with long-suffering exhortation and right doctrine will end up having longevity and consistency in the work. And so I charge you to pray for your preacher's attitude in the work of preaching. Pray that all of us that preacher would have the joy of the Lord as the work of the Lord accomplishes the purposes of the Lord. Pray that your heart would not be the cause of his long suffering. That today would be the day of your salvation, maybe. Or that maybe today would be the day of your greater capacity for obedience by the power of his spirit. Pray that you would yearn and crave for sound doctrine and passionate preaching. Pray that you would not only refuse the sour milk of the world's teachings, but that you would desire the meat of the deep doctrines that lead us all to greater worship and obedience. Sixth, the warning for the proclaimer, verses three and four. There's this warning listed here in verses three and four that have always reigned true in the history of the church, and maybe now more than ever, is finding themselves into the body life of the average Christian church. Over the past few weeks, we've seen the need to toss out that which is false and cling to what is true. The warning for the preacher in this is really twofold. One, don't fall for the schemes of the evil one that says there's a new and better way to do this gospel work. Don't fall for the church growth models that say abandon this or seek relevancy above all. The world and those who are immature will always seek to look just like the world. And so there'll be this never-ending slide of falling for the latest cultural whim. The church who remains faithful to the word will never ever be relevant enough, hip enough. I don't even know if anybody knows what that means anymore. Cool enough. I don't know what word to use anymore. Not trendy enough to appeal to the masses. That will never happen to the faithful church. We're just not going to appeal to that. And so we just need to stop, as evangelical churches, especially in America, we just need to stop the nonsense that tells us just be like the world. If they're doing that in the community, that's where it's at. That's how we can grow and reach more people. No. The book of Acts continually teaches us how a church grows. There is but one church growth model, and the Lord has put it down. By the hand of the Lord, the church grew, the book of Acts tells us multiple times. That's it. That's our theme. It's his church, his bride, he will grow it how and wish how and in whatever way he wishes, or not. We are called to remain faithful. We just continue to preach the truth with unashamed fervency. We do the things the scriptures command us to do. As we seek to teach the world with the gospel, we do not aim to be like the world. Because our message is far too great to limit its power in such a way. My wife and I were head, knees, shoulders, toes, whatever you want to call it, in the world before we came to Christ. In every way you could possibly think of, probably. And when we came to the faith, I don't know about you guys, in the same way or not, but when we came to the faith, we wanted nothing more than the church to look different than the world. Don't bring that stuff in here. What does the Bible say? That's all I want. I mean, think about it, we pray corporately because why? We're instructed to. We study the Bible because we're told to. We sing the Bible together because we're commanded to. We read the scriptures because we're ordered to. And we preach the word because we're compelled to by God's great edict given here in this passage and others like today. Second warning for the preacher in this work. This is hard. Stay faithful, no matter what the people think. Even if all the people fall away from the truth to the latest, as he talks about ear tickling or ear scratching worldly chatter, the man who preaches according to the word of God must never cease. The preacher may be shoved out of the pulpits of many churches, as we've seen in the past, those churches who fall victim to this program or that New Age philosophy, but that never changes the preacher's passion nor his tactics. They're God's tactics. And they will always prove faithful and true. Seats may be full at that other place. But it will end up being a place of godless idolatry. Of Christ and his word are not the central focus if they're not obeyed and worshipped above all. But it will be a place of dread. Because it will be a place that has lost its flame as Christ the flamekeeper snuffs it out. Meanwhile, the church that stands fast on the word of God will impact the world with greater influence and powerful transformations. Why? Because the salvation of one sinner heaps up more joy in heaven than a thousand seeds full of self-deceived false worshippers who have no delight for the doctrine of God and the preaching of his word. Prairie Baptist Church. I charge you. In the presence of God to remain steadfast in sound doctrine. Beg God that you would love his truth. Beg God that you would not fall for the latest wind, the latest waves of the world niceties and fashionable presentations. Pray that you wouldn't fall for those teachings that just itch the fleshly desires that we all have to live comfortably. And you end up hearing of the weak Savior that calls you to love without any cost. Flee the church that flees the truth of sin. Flee the teaching that says you can find God in some other religion. Flee the so-called preaching that proclaims humanistic doctrines that boast of man's work and salvation. And they end up purifying that man unto hell by purging the need for Christ to be Lord of his life as they do this. Sound doctrine will be opposed by the faithless. Those who desire those soft and squishy teachings we say today. Those who find someone to make them feel good. Those who turn to myths that subvert the gospel. So I just again charge you today to be lovers of the word, lovers of the author of the word. Never love the world, but find your greatest satisfaction in the truth of what your great God has spoken, because a life saturated in the Word of God is a life satisfied in its author. Seventh and last. We'll close here. The life of the proclaimer, verse five. Now, as you know, sobriety is important for the Christian, right? Sobriety is especially important for the man preaching the word. Being inebriated in the pulpit, not a good thing. Whether that's alcohol, marijuana, narcotics, doesn't matter. Now that's obvious, that's a given. But the sobriety that Paul is speaking of here is a sobriety of life, of ministry, and of doctrine. He is charging Timothy, the young evangelist and pastor, to train hard, work hard, study hard, to be well equipped and on guard as he does this work. Somber sobriety, we could call it, as a preacher studies the Word of God day by day, with sobering truths of the death and the resurrection on his mind, being sharpened and trained, having a diligent and stable life. The passionate preacher does the work that is called of him by the Lord, no matter what the world desires. He does the work of an evangelist, it says. What's the work of an evangelist? Preach the gospel. What else does an evangelist do? It points them, that person points them to Christ. That's fulfilling of this work. And so as there will always be the temptation to do it according to the patterns of the world to come, as the hardships of the ministry come crashing against you, dear Timothy, Paul could be saying. As those near you waver in the faith, as those wolves come into the church seeking to subvert the ministry of the gospel, as the pains of this life afflict, as the dangers of the ministry become clear, Timothy, do the work. Preach the gospel, fulfill your calling, preach the word. The faithful minister of the gospel is called to this kind of sobriety of life. He is called to be exemplary in suffering when called upon. He is called to work hard at the task appointed to him, and he is called above all to preach the good news of Jesus Christ with an unwavering conviction, using a file, as it were, to keep the edges sharp. The gospel needs its edges. Using a watertight seal to prevent it from being watered down. And using his callous knees to grow in his ability to trust in the Lord. And again, I just remind you, the preacher is desperate for the church in this work. As I've heard before, COVID preaching where preachers were preaching to a camera or whatever, it was like a hostage video. That is not what the church is called to. That is not what should ever happen again in the church. The church needs to gather to be under the preaching of the word. And so the preacher cannot do this alone. He needs the people of God spurring him on by their love of the word of God. He needs the people of God lifting him up when those hard times come. He needs the people of God being prepared for this work as they worship at home and daily in their lives. He needs the people of God to be excited for this kind of preaching that is foolishness to the dying world. But known by his wisdom, or but known to be wisdom and joy to those who, again, verse 8, love is appearing. We'll talk about that next week. And so may the gravitas, the high seriousness of what we do here week by week, just continue to grow in each of our hearts as we dive into the word. Pray that you would be thrilled and excited to be here hearing it. And please, whatever you do, please, we beg of you, please pray that your preachers would always remain faithful to his word. I, we, cannot do this alone. We cannot do this in our own strength. And so I simply end this sermon this morning with the words of Paul from 1 Corinthians 9, 16. For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of. For I am under compulsion. For woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. The good news of Jesus Christ. He has come, he has done the work, he has lived a sinless life, he has died on the cross in our place, he has become the substitutionary atonement. He resurrected three days later, he's coming again, and he's coming as king and judge. And that is imminent. And yet, as we know, this resurrected Lord is here with us today. Watch your countenance as you hear the preaching of the word in light of the presence of God. Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you for the privilege of coming on this Lord's Day to this place that you have allowed us to occupy as the church. I ask you, Father, that you would continue to give us hearts and minds that desire your word. That anybody who preaches in this pulpit would do it with passion, with fervency, with urgency, with sound mind and doctrine, so that you would be glorified. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.