Preach, pastor, preach. All right, amen. Let's take our Bibles and turn to 1 Timothy 2. 1 Timothy 2. Now, don't leave just after you hear the scripture text, okay? This is one of those passages that a lot of preachers would not touch with a nine-and-a-half-foot pole, right? Or a 39-and-a-half-foot. Is that the one that the Grinch, you know, you wouldn't touch him with a 39-and-a-half-foot pole, right, in the old song? Certainly it is part of inspired scripture and I think it is a fitting text to read in conjunction with our series that we are going through, The Great Church Victorious, Commitments of a Strong Congregation. So what are the things that a healthy church is committed to? And that's what we want to consider in this series. Of course, it's a bit of a diversion from the series that we were doing in 1 Peter, and we will get back to that, Lord willing, once we finish this series. But I thought that this would be an appropriate rabbit trail, if you want to put it in those terms, especially as we think about our church. A godly pastor once told me that every decision you make should be based on principle. And what we do as a church needs to be based on the principles of scripture. There are lots of things that you might see churches doing. If you look in Paxton, if you look at the surrounding communities, you might think, wow, if we did that, we could get all kinds of people. Well, we probably could. But we don't base our decisions based simply on what is practical, based simply on what is likely to draw a crowd. We must base our decisions on what the scripture teaches. So that needs to be our heartbeat, and that's really the heartbeat behind this particular series that we're going through. So I trust and I pray that as we go through this series, that we will get a glimpse into what God says a church should be, and not simply what the culture says, not simply what the church growth experts say that the church should be, but what does God say? That is our heartbeat. So we're gonna be reading as we begin. Of course, we'll be surveying a few different passages here this morning, but I wanna start with 1 Timothy 2, and verse 11, 1 Timothy 2, verse 11. And Paul writes, let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. Father, we thank you that you are the God of order. Lord, the structure that you have put in place in the home, in the church, even in society more broadly, is a perfect design. And Lord, we have gotten ourselves into a world of trouble simply because we have failed to honor the structure that you have put in place, and we have replaced it with the schemes of humanity. But Lord, we praise you for the inerrant scriptures. We know that they are a lamp to our feet, a light to our path. May they serve that role today. O Lord, grant us willingness to hear and obey your holy word. And it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. The American church is in a gender crisis. This is not a matter of personal opinion. It is a matter of factual record based on hard data. In his book, Why Men Hate Going to Church, David Murrow presents us with some very troubling statistics. The U.S. Congregational Life Survey identified the average churchgoer as a 50-year-old married, well-educated, employed female. ABC News and Beliefnet did a poll in which they found that a worshiper is most likely an older black female who lives in the South. Murrow combines data from the U.S. Census and the Barna Research Group to conclude that there are about 48 million adult women in U.S. churches and 35 million adult men. That is a gender gap of 13 million. In 2007, I know this has been some years ago, but I highly doubt the statistics have improved much since then, but in 2007, 69% of Baptist churches reported having more women than men. Every other Christian denomination survey reported that over 70% of their churches had a gender gap with more women than men. The gender gap has affected the Roman Catholic Church. 26% of US Catholic men attend mass on a weekly basis compared to 49% of Catholic women. The traditionally black denominations in the United States have had a particularly hard time. Researchers estimate that 75% to 90% of adults who attend African-American congregations are women. Now, by contrast to all of this, Atheism, agnosticism, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism are all attracting more men than women. Now, you might look at all of this and say, well, no big deal. At least the churches are attracting a lot of women. And we praise the Lord for faithful women, of course. But you have to understand something about the hard data. Again, David Murrow's book, Why Men Hate Going to Church, he helps us out, and he cites researcher C. Kirk Hadaway of Hartford Seminary, who undertook a study of 14,000 congregations, and he concluded this. Even when controlling for the proportion of older participants, a higher proportion of women in the congregation is associated with decline rather than growth. Now, these trends have not escaped the notice of a watching world. The most poignant discussion that I have seen of this comes from the clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson. Of course, he's a former professor at the University of Toronto. Many of you know that he now works with Ben Shapiro's The Daily Wire. He produced a video on YouTube that is entitled, Message to the Christian Churches. And if you've not watched that video, I would commend it to you. I just want to give you a little snippet from that video. Let me quote from it. He says this. Once again to the churches, Protestant, you're the worst at the moment. Catholic, Orthodox, invite young men. Put up a billboard. Say, young men are welcome here. Print some flyers and put them in a box by the billboard. Signal the existence of those flyers with an arrow with the words, more information about attending here. Tell those who have never been in a church exactly what to do. How to dress, when to show up, who to contact, and most importantly, what they can do. Ask more, not less, of those you are inviting. Ask more of them than anyone ever has. Remind them who they are in the deepest sense and help them become that. Quit fighting for social justice. Quit saving the planet. Attend to some souls. That's what you're supposed to do. That's your holy duty. Do it now before it's too late. The hour is nigh. Now, for an unsaved clinical psychologist, those observations aren't half bad. In fact, they are far more perceptive than what we are hearing from most evangelical leaders today. Shortly after I came as pastor, we showed the documentary, The Essential Church. And you may recall that in that film, John MacArthur indicated that when he came to Grace Community Church in 1969, he had two goals. Number one, to teach the word of God. And number two, to train men. And those have been my two goals as well. To be frank, we still have a ways to go in accomplishing both of those, but it is my passion to see our men committed to the Lord Jesus Christ, to see them engaged and not simply sitting in a pew in the life of the local church. We've overdosed quite frankly on absentee fathers who let their wives manage the spiritual affairs of the household. We have men who don't know how to open a Bible, men who don't know how to pray. It is my passion for this church to be radically counter-cultural, to have men with a passion for the Lord Jesus Christ, a passion for the word of God, a passion for expository preaching, a passion for long sermons. Yeah, I know. A passion for prayer. You know, there's a practical benefit to emphasizing men. Some years ago, I heard Evangelist Ron Comfort make an observation that I believe was based on his experience of ministering to thousands, well, at least hundreds of churches across our nation. He said this, if you focus on reaching children, you'll have a children's church. If you focus on reaching women, you'll have a women's church. But if you focus primarily on reaching men, You'll have a family church. That's what we want. My commitment to training men is not simply based on practical considerations. It is based on biblical considerations, as we're going to see. A strong congregation is committed to the bold leadership of godly men. Now, I'll give you a heads up that this is gonna be a two-part message. What we're going to get into today is very foundational to all of this. We wanna lay the groundwork of the need for male leadership in the local church. And when I'm talking about leadership, we are thinking in broader terms than simply the officers of the church. We'll get to that in a moment. But we're also thinking of lay leadership in this church. Maybe you're not called to be a pastor. Maybe you're not called to serve as a deacon. But men, you can play a vital role in stepping up and being leaders in this church. Now, what we'll get into next week, Lord willing, will be a little bit more of the dynamics about the leadership structure in the local church. You might be curious about some of those things. Where does the pastor come in? Where do the deacons come in? Where does the congregation come in? We'll get into that in more detail next week. But I wanna lay a groundwork to speak specifically to our men this morning. And women, I don't want you to tune out, okay? Be engaged as well. For no other reason, you can nudge your husband occasionally. But we want to deal with three great needs for leadership in the local church. And we'll deal with the first of them this morning. And really the most foundational, number one, the need for men in local church leadership. the need for men in local church leadership. The obvious place to start is with the pastor. Now, you're in 1 Timothy chapter two. I want you to look in chapter three and verse two. Of course, you have in chapter three, Paul articulating the qualifications for a bishop, which we'll discuss in more detail next week, Lord willing. But I just wanna draw one of these to your attention. 1 Timothy chapter three and verse two, he speaks here of a bishop And as we will see again next week, that bishop, pastor, elder, all of those three terms are interchangeable for the office of leadership in the local church. Paul writes that a bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife. The term husband there is the Greek word anere. It is a word that is distinctly used for men. There can be no question, ladies and gentlemen, that God restricts the office of the pastor to qualified men and not to women. Now, we see the same thing in verse 12, if you look, and here Paul speaks of the deacons. He says, let the deacons be the husbands of one wife. There again, you have the Greek word on air. But the most extensive discussion of the issue of male leadership in the church is actually in the passage that we began with in 1 Timothy chapter 2. Now this is a passage that many pastors are embarrassed to find in their Bibles. In many cases pastors spend more time trying to explain away the passage than they actually do explaining the passage. And friends, that cannot be. This passage is so vital to our understanding of the church that we cannot ignore it and we cannot explain it away. So let's dive into it. Okay, back in 1 Timothy 2 and verse 11. Paul writes, let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. There's one verb that's used in those words. It is the word that is translated, let learn. That is the verb here. Now for all the controversy that is engendered by this text, we have to start by recognizing just how counter-cultural Christianity was in its day. In the ancient world, it was often assumed that women were not to learn anything when it came to religious matters. This was true in both the Roman culture and in the Jewish culture. So before you label Paul a chauvinist pig, Consider that many of his contemporaries would have accused him of the exact opposite. But we have to understand here the spirit in which women are to learn. First, Paul says they are to learn in silence. Now it is true that this Greek word can refer simply to a peaceable disposition that doesn't try to agitate or to stir up trouble. And certainly women should have such a disposition. But I think it is far more likely in the context that Paul has in mind a literal silence. There's a comparable text in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verses 34 and 35. Let me read them to you. Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. Now, we do have to clarify that 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2, these are not absolute prohibitions against women doing any kind of speaking on the church property. And we'll get into that, okay, in a moment. But Paul's intention here, when he says, let the woman learn in silence, is further clarified by what we read in verse 12. Notice. but I suffer or I allow, I permit not a woman to teach. When Paul refers to teaching, he is referring to teaching that occurs in the midst of gathered worship in the context of the local church. This is apparent when you look at Paul's two other uses of this word in 1 Timothy. So if you go over to chapter four in verse 11, Notice Paul writes here, these things command and teach. You notice that there's that strong impetus there of authority with that word command. That is exactly the role that women are not to exercise in the context of the local church. Then if you go over to chapter six, verse two, notice the end of the verse. First Timothy chapter six and verse two. These things teach and exhort. Again, instruction being given here to Timothy. And as you look through the context, notice verse three. If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing. Paul goes on to describe those who reject this kind of instruction. But you see here that the teaching is connected specifically with the teaching of scriptural doctrine. And so to teach is to teach biblical doctrine, biblical instruction to a mixed congregation of women and men. That is forbidden to women in the text of scripture. Now it has become fashionable in recent years for evangelicals to argue that a woman might preach from the pulpit as long as she does so under the authority of the male leaders in that church. And friends, that simply will not be sustained from the text of scripture because what Paul is forbidding here is not simply the office of the pastor, it is the task of teaching. That is forbidden to the woman in scripture. That task has been uniquely instructed, or uniquely given to men. Now Paul says something else about the woman's learning. Back in chapter two in verse 11, Paul says here that she is to learn with all subjection. The idea of subjection communicates the idea of submitting to authority. That becomes evident again in verse 12. Notice how Paul further elaborates here. He says, but I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. That verb that is translated to usurp authority means to control in a domineering manner. Now that kind of approach is not allowed according to the Apostle Paul. The woman must assume a submissive stance in the church and recognize her subordinate role in comparison to the men that God has ordained in leadership over the congregation. I want to again refer back to David Murrow's book, Why Men Hate Going to Church. And I want to quote these extended comments because I imagine that many of us can resonate with what he says here. Listen to what he says. He says, in the church, men have always been in charge. Christianity was founded by a man and his 12 male associates. 95% of the senior pastors in America are men. Every Catholic bishop, priest, cardinal, and pope is a man. Some church boards are composed entirely of men. Christians sit in church, look up and see a man in the pulpit, and assume the institution he leads is a bastion of male power and privilege. But look beyond the relatively thin stratum of professional clergy, and you find a church dominated by women and their values. Dr. Leon Podol says it well. Modern churches are women's club with a few male officers. Whenever large numbers of Christians gather, men are never in the majority. Not at revivals, not at crusades, not at conferences, not at retreats, not at concerts. With the exception of men's events and pastoral conferences, can you think of any large gathering of Christians that attracts more men than women? Visit a church during the week, and you'll find that most of the people working there are female. Drop in on a committee meeting, and you'll find a majority of the volunteers are women, unless it's that small bastion of male presence, the building committee. Look over the leadership roster. The pastor is likely to be a man, but at least two-thirds of his ministry leaders will be women. Examine the sign-up sheets for volunteer work, prayer, Sunday school, and nursery duty. You'll be lucky to see more than a couple of men's names on these lists. Male ministers come and go, but faithful women provide a matriarchal continuity in our congregations. Women are the devoted ones who build their lives around their commitments to Christ and his church. Women are more likely to teach and volunteer at church and are the greatest participants in Christian culture. The sad reality in many congregations is this, the only man who actually practices his faith is the pastor. Now don't get me wrong, we absolutely need both men and women to volunteer in the life of the church. But haven't we all been in situations, maybe you've been in churches like this, where the pastor was a man, but the ones who were really running the show were the women. And maybe you've been in situations where those women were particularly bossy and boisterous. What Paul is envisioning is not just that men will be pastors, he's envisioning that men will be the significant influencers, the drivers of the churches. They will be the most dominant voices Mark it down. Whenever women are the most dominant voices in the congregation, that church is on the steady pathway to decline. Paul gives a rationale for his instruction. Notice verse 13. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. Isn't that striking? When Paul wants to defend male leadership in the church, he doesn't go back to the Gospels. He doesn't go back to the prophets. He doesn't even go back to the law of Moses. He goes all the way back to creation. The order in which Adam and Eve were created proves the reality of male leadership in the home, in the church, and in the society at large. Now you may remember when we talked about Genesis 3, there was a deliberate design of the serpent strategy in the garden. When the serpent wanted to tempt mankind, who did he go to? He went to the woman. But you remember that when God confronted Adam and Eve in the garden, who did he go to first? He went to Adam. And you remember that he rebuked Adam because of the fact that he hearkened to the voice of his wife. There was a reversal of roles. Adam was to be the leader, but instead he was the follower. Now friends, we have to face the harsh reality of the fact that I know it's not popular in our culture, but the Bible is a patriarchal book. Adam was created first, not Eve. Noah was the preacher of righteousness, not his wife. The patriarchs of the Jewish people, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were all men. The namesake for the tribes of Israel were all men. Israel was delivered out of Egypt by a man. Israel was brought into the promised land by a man. The kings of Israel and Judah were all men. Every book in the Bible, without exception, was written by a man. The 12 apostles were all men. And of course, the Son of God came to earth, not as a woman, but as a man. Now, yes, we acknowledge, of course, that there are great women of faith in the Bible, without which the Bible's storyline would, of course, be radically incomplete. Women are indispensable to the plan and purposes of God, but the normative pattern that is established at creation is for men to be in leadership. This is commanded in the context of the local church. Paul doesn't stop at creation. Notice verse 14. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. And when you read the account of the fall, you acknowledge in that reading that Eve herself says she was deceived. She says in Genesis 3.13, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat. Now Paul's comments here are important because of what he says in his second letter to Timothy. If you go over to chapter 3 in 2 Timothy, and it is in this passage that Paul is describing the sins that will be prevalent in the last days. There's sort of this laundry list of all these ungodly traits. Notice verse 5. He says that in the last days there will be those who have a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away. There's this outward form of godliness without any real substance. And then, notice what is said in verse 6. For of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts. What Paul is indicating here is a greater vulnerability that women tend to have toward deception. Now, I wouldn't take this to mean that this is an absolute law that women are always easier to deceive than men when it comes to spiritual matters, but it does seem to suggest, when we read the text in 1 Timothy 2, that there is a general pattern. And friends, the dangers of false teaching in the local church are so significant that the task of leading and teaching cannot be given to those who are more likely to be led astray by error. Now, back in 1 Timothy 2, verse 15 has perplexed a lot of interpreters. It's a bit ancillary to our purposes in this message, but to get the complete picture, let's look at it. Verse 15, notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. What in the world is Paul talking about here? Well, first of all, we have to understand what he's not saying. Paul is not saying that women can be saved from their sins and have eternal life by having lots of children. Nor is he saying, and I've heard this before believe it or not, that women can be spared from having lots of labor pains as long as they're faithful Christians. The meaning, actually, in this context is this, that even though women can't teach men in the church, and even though they cannot exercise authority over men in the church, they can be saved in the sense they are saved from having no role or no significance in the church by faithfully caring for and nurturing children. These instructions don't necessitate that a woman has to be a mother. We know that that's not the calling in every woman's life. Even women who are incapable medically of bearing children can still nurture children in other ways. Many of you in this room can testify to not just a caring mother, but perhaps a caring Sunday school teacher, a caring teacher in your school system, a caring neighbor, somebody who really took the time to nurture and care for you. So women will not be preaching behind this pulpit, but they can find fulfillment in many other avenues of service, especially their care of children. Now, if we haven't already had our fair share of controversy for today, and I didn't, nobody's walked out, that's good, that's good. I wanna turn our attention to another passage, and if you didn't walk out with this one, maybe you'll walk out when we start reading this one. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Now, as we turn to 1 Corinthians 11, I have to say, we should never be afraid of what we're going to learn when we study our Bibles. That is a particularly striking temptation with this text, and I have to say that it is a temptation that I personally succumb to. The Lord worked on my heart about this, and I strongly felt compelled to study this passage because it fit so well with what we're talking about in this message. And if you really wanna dig deep into this text, I would recommend to you, there's a YouTube video that's out there that is six hours and 45 minutes long. So, you know, make sure you have your coffee. But Pastor Mike Winger, he has produced a video of that length on this passage, and he deals with just about every conceivable issue of interpretation, so I would commend that to you. But let's start out, we won't be doing that long this morning, don't worry. Let's start with verse 2 in 1 Corinthians 11. Paul writes, Now we mentioned that term ordinances. Of course, Baptist churches generally recognize two ordinances in the formal sense, the Lord's Supper and baptism. But it's obvious that Paul is using this term more broadly than simply those two official church ordinances. He's referring here to any kind of traditional practice that has been endorsed by the apostles. In fact, the tradition, the ordinance that Paul is referring to here is something that was universally accepted in the first century. If you skip down to verse 16, notice. Paul says, but if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God. So in other words, Paul is saying, look, if you're going to take issue with what I'm telling you here, you're going to be on your own because all the churches accept this practice. Now, let's look at how Paul reasons, beginning in verse 3 of 1 Corinthians 11. But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God. That word head speaks of authority. It's the same word that's used in Ephesians chapter five when Paul says that the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. And you remember that in that context, Paul tells the wife to submit to the husband. There's a position of authority, of headship. just as the body responds to the directions that are given to it by the head, so the church responds to the directions given to it by Christ, and so the wife responds to the directions given to her by her husband. Now in 1 Corinthians 11, this general idea is broadened to the relationships between men and women in the local church. Look at verse 4. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered, dishonoreth her head. For that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. Now, you say, what in the world is Paul talking about? Well, when you look at the Greek words that are used here to describe being covered and uncovered, these are the words that speak of cloth head coverings. The woman who prays or prophesies without such a covering is dishonoring her head. Now, I take that here to mean not her physical head, but in the context, a reference to her spiritual head, if you want to put it in those terms. Namely, her husband and the male leadership in the local church. And Paul also condemns a man who does wear a head covering, saying he dishonors his head, who in this case is Christ. By the way, we shouldn't miss that there's a two-way instruction here. It is not just the women in this context that are told to wear the coverings. It is the men who are told not to wear them. Somebody was recently telling me about a pastor who preaches with a beanie hat on. And that is entirely unbiblical. Now why is the covering important? Well, look at verse seven. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head for as much as he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. So, Paul here appeals to creation just as he did in 1 Timothy 2. And he cites here, first of all, origins. Of course, we know in that account in Genesis chapter 2 that the man was created first, and then the woman was created from a rib from Adam's side. So the woman came from the man. Secondly, Paul cites purpose. The woman was created for the man and not the other way around. The created order points to male headship. Because of this order, Paul argues that men should not wear head coverings, as we saw in verse 7, and that women should wear head coverings. Notice verse 10, for this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. That word power is the Greek word for authority. In other words, the head covering symbolizes the fact that the woman is under authority. That's why man can't wear the coverings, because they are called to a place of authority. And to wear the head covering would be to negate that sense of authority. To further bolster his case, Paul appeals to the fact that angels are witnesses to the church gatherings. And earlier in 1 Corinthians, in chapter four, he mentions that we are made a spectacle to the angels. Angels need to see that God's ordained order is recognized in the worship gatherings. Men should be in leadership, women should be in submission. Now as you continue reading, you find that Paul defends this particular custom of the head coverings by appealing to nature. Look in verse 14. doth not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him. But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given her for a covering." And what Paul is arguing is this, that women, the fact that you ought to pray or prophesy, we'll get to that in a moment, with a head covering, is proven from nature itself. Because naturally, you have long hair. Furthermore, the fact that it's a shame for a man to have long hair demonstrates the inappropriateness of a man wearing a covering when he prays or prophesies. Now there's a whole lot of complexity in this chapter that we're not going to get into this morning. But if you look beyond some of the things that might distract us, the main underlying point is clear. That God has called men to a place of leadership. That's true in the home, it is true in society, and it is true in the local church. And in Paul's day, congregations recognized male leadership through the use of head coverings. The infamous question at this point is, Brother Nick, do you believe that women should continue to wear head coverings today? And my answer to that question is yes, under the specific conditions that are described in the passage. Paul here, he does not say that women are required to wear head coverings generally in the congregation. What he specifically says is that they are to wear the coverings when praying or prophesying. So in other words, if a woman is to lead in prayer, or if she is to exercise the gift of prophecy, she is to be covered. Now we recognize that according to what we teach as a church, we believe that the gift of prophecy has ceased. It is no longer in operation since we have the completed canon of scripture. But there are other ways, I believe, that this principle could be applied. For example, when My wife was in Saipan. She served as a translator for a program that trained Chinese house church pastors. These instructors for those courses were men, but my wife was a translator. In order to send a very clear message that she was simply the translator, she was not the one giving the instruction, she would wear a head covering to demonstrate her submission to the male teacher that was teaching those courses. Now you might say, Brother Nick, that's offensive. The question is not whether it's offensive. The question is whether it's biblical. Again, friends, I don't want to get overly distracted by the point of the covering or the uncovering. The real greater point here is male headship. The real sticking point in the American church is not the hat, it's not the veil, whatever, it's the heart. The fact that the reading of a passage like this and the reading of a passage like 1 Corinthians 2 causes such controversy reveals that we are not in submission to God's design for the church. Now, there's a method to the madness behind what we do at Grace Baptist Church. The men's prayer breakfast is not just an opportunity for guys to get together and talk about guns and sports. Not that there's anything wrong with those topics. I'd rather have that than gossip, right? But we have the men's prayer breakfast in order to raise up godly lay leaders, godly male lay leaders in the context of the local church. In February, we're gonna have a men's rally with multiple preaching services and teaching workshops. Why? We're doing it so we can raise up godly male lay leaders in the church. When you look at our church services, they are intentionally dominated by men. There's a man doing the preaching. There's a man doing the pastoral prayer. There's a man reading scripture. There's a man leading singing. Now there's a topic worth talking about for a moment. A man leading singing. Most evangelical churches have moved away from a single man leading singing. The norm is now the worship team, where you have a mixed ensemble of men and women leading in worship. Now, it's not necessarily something I'd be burned at the stake over, but it is my conviction that that is a subtle erosion of male headship in the church. When you walk into the doors of Grace Baptist Church, you are greeted by a man. Now I don't think that's necessarily a matter of biblical faithfulness. There are godly women who serve as greeters in churches. But we send a clear message from the moment you walk into the doors that this is a church in which men are committed to service for Christ. The most significant things we do as a congregation are led by men. The pastor is a man. The deacon is a man. The treasurer, the assistant treasurer are both men. And I have regular meetings with our male church officers. Now you might think this is the most chauvinistic sermon you've ever heard in your life. And maybe you think, well, Brother Nick, it really doesn't seem to me like women would be attracted to a place like this. And on this point, biblically, I have to say I think you're wrong. I want to draw your attention to the verse that we read in the bulletin this morning, 1 Corinthians 16 and verse 13. This is part of Paul's concluding instruction to the church at Corinth. He says, watch ye, stand in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. The words quit you like men, it doesn't mean quit being men, which is I think how many men have interpreted it. It means act like men. Isn't that something? Paul tells a local church to act like men. And you notice that there are other qualities here that are connected with acting like men, being watchful, being steadfast or firm in the faith, and being strong. Don't you think godly women would want to be a part of a church that's characterized by those things? It's a sad reality that spirituality has become the domain of women. We associate spirituality with feminine decorations, with Hallmark cards, with a sort of soft, milquetoast type of disposition. Home decor that has Bible verses on it is often connected with a very girly type of script and flowers. You would never see those types of things in a mechanic shop, and it's just assumed that you would never see a Bible verse in a mechanic shop, because this is what women do and not men, and that's a shame. But when you read through the pages of the New Testament, you find that Christianity is not a weak effeminate religion It is a religion of sacrifice. It requires deep commitment even to the point of hating father mother brother sisters wife and self It is a religion that calls for courage in the face of persecution as they hated me so they'll hate you Jesus said and We have something to offer the men of Central Illinois. In a culture that treats all masculinity as toxic, we have a Bible that exalts bold manhood in the service of Jesus Christ. A masculine environment centered on that kind of boldness is attractive to all kinds of people, to men, to women, and to children. Now let me swear honestly with you. I refuse to pastor this church like a woman. As long as I am the pastor here, we will not kowtow to female emotions and hormones. We will not become engrossed in female drama. This is the church of Jesus Christ. This is not an episode of the young and the restless. Under my pastorate, we will hold the bar high. We will demand holiness. We will demand commitment from followers of Jesus Christ. Under my pastorate, we will be bold and we will take risks, and we will not fear the fallout from weak-minded people who want everything done their way. Under my pastorate, we will have long, expository sermons that engage deeply with the text of Scripture, not sugar-coated sermonettes filled with trite, tear-jerking stories. Under my pastorate, we will confront the forces of compromise, the forces of wokeness, the forces of secularism, and we will not back down in the face of opposition. Under my pastorate, we will preach on sin, we will preach on repentance, we will preach on hell, we will preach on the wrath of God. We're not just doing this to be macho. We're doing this to be biblical. What we're doing looks incredibly abnormal in the face of an increasingly weak and androgynous culture in our day. So men, what about you? Are you going to stand for Christ? Are you going to lead your homes in the path of righteousness? Are you going to give heart and soul and mind and strength to serve the king of kings? Or are you going to let women lead the way? The future. of Grace Baptist Church hinges on your answers to those questions. Your Father, we thank you for the Word of God. We thank you for the structure that you have ordained in the life of the church. Lord, my heart goes out to our men. Oh Lord, challenge them, provoke them to be godly leaders in their homes. May they stand for Christ in the home, may they stand for Christ in the culture, and may they stand for Christ in this church. I pray that men would be challenged to take bold leadership in this congregation, to take a real stand for Christ. Lord, we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, I'm gonna do something that's a bit unusual, so bear with me. And people will probably tell me I shouldn't do this, but that's okay, we'll do it anyway. I would like all the men, if you were a man, I would like all the men to come up to the first two rows, if you could. All right, if you were male, don't worry, we're not gonna humiliate you or anything. I know, I frustrate our people by throwing the curveballs, but I think we'll manage, all right? That's good, I'm glad to see men up here. Excellent, praise the Lord. All right, I want our men to turn to 575. 575 in your hymn books. And I actually don't want instruments. I want this to be a cappella, all right?