Well, good evening, and it's good to have you here for the 5 p.m. service. It's going to be a little bit of a different feel this evening. Actually, this is the tail end, unofficially, of the men's conference weekend emphasis. How's that? We'll call it that. I've asked several men going into the conference if they would, with careful ears and prayerful hearts, consider how they might share a testimony about the conference and its impact in their life and 4D men's ministry and kind of emphasize as a guy in our church why men discipling men is so crucial to a local church like ours. So I'm eager to hear these men give testimonies this evening. I'll tell you more in just a moment, but let's open in a word of prayer. Father, thank you that we can come and as a psalmist said, give testimony in front of the congregation, in the congregation, in other words, share our walk and how we are growing and how you've been kind to us and our commitments to you. Share that in the presence of other worshipers. as a means of accountability, but also as a means of challenge to those who are hearing. And so, Lord, that's why testimony services are so important. And, Lord, we look forward to joining our voices together several more times this evening, too, and worship to you corporately. So thank you for your presence. Thank you for our church family. We thank you that the youth group is with us this evening in this service. And we continue to pray for the Awana ministry as it continues to roll on across this campus this evening. And thank you again for the strong numbers and participation in the Awana ministry even tonight. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, before we go any further, I would like for you to open your Bible. Let's hear from God's word, a challenge not only aimed at men, but I don't want the men to miss what this psalm will say. Psalm 112, Psalm 112. Many Old Testament interpreters believe that Psalm 111 and 112 are brother and sister psalms, meaning they go together. They're a couple. They're siblings together. And I find that to be a sweet observation. But I'm just going to direct our attention to the entirety of Psalm 112. And no doubt with the background music of the Men's Weekend playing here in our church's heart, that first line is going to resonate with us. Praise the Lord. How blessed is the man who fears the Lord or who lives his moments with an awareness of the Lord's proximity, his closeness, his nearness. And it's gonna unfold, all 10 verses, with showing how an awareness in a man's life, any believer's life, but in a man's life here, how an awareness of the Lord's presence not only affects him, but affects those around him, including his family, and how it affects the enemies of God. So this is quite a chunk of 10 verses. Follow along as I read. Praise the Lord. How blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth. The generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. Light arises in the darkness for the upright. He is gracious and compassionate and righteous. It is well with the man who is gracious and lends. He will maintain his cause in judgment, for he will never be shaken. The righteous will be remembered forever. He will not fear evil tidings. His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is upheld. He will not fear. until he looks with satisfaction on his adversaries. He has given freely to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. His horn will be exalted in honor, and the wicked will see it and be vexed. He will gnash his teeth and melt away. The desire of the wicked will perish. We start with a man who fears the Lord. That's how he's living his life. And the effect spreads out from him to all people, those who are faithful to the Lord and those who hate the Creator and his creative order. So may God add his blessing to the reading of his word and may the Spirit give us ears to hear. Psalm 112. So here's how the service is going to look tonight. Pretty simple, with a little bit of extra singing, and I pray it will be a challenge to your heart. I've asked these four men to give testimonies in this order this evening. So if you're one of these four guys, I think you know the order, but let me just say it right now. First of all, we're gonna have Jonathan Hibbets, and secondly, will be Aaron Dietz, and then Austin Jesse. And then fourth, and finally, will be John Lovejoy. In just a moment, I'll have Jonathan come up. Between each testimony, our musicians are gonna stand and lead us in a song. So we're gonna have a testimony song, testimony song through the service there. And then after John Lovejoy gives his testimony, Pastor Michael will come up for a few final reflections, and then he'll close us in a word of prayer. So Jonathan Hibbitts, you're up to bat. Oh wait, are we singing again? We're not singing right now. Sorry. See? I'm just going with the flow here. Come on up, Jonathan. OK, so when Pastor asked me to come up here and just talk about the conference and our experience with 4D, I was happy to. This is season seven. I don't know how many of us fit into this boat, but I've been able to be involved with each of the previous seasons since its inception. So starting off season seven is a really great opportunity to just look at where we've come from. And in this time, we've had a lot of great speakers. I think I've met more authors than I ever thought that I would with Pastor Jim's Connections, and putting a face and a name and getting a chance to talk to someone whose book you've read before or whose name you hear quoted up here in a sermon is really neat. But that aside, like what he's doing, he's bringing in people that have so much wisdom to share with us. And each season is curated with a particular focus in mind for the men of our church. And I'm excited for this year's. It's all about enduring and finishing our race. And not only do we have a conference like this, but we're challenged to read through a book. So we received that yesterday. And also we make connections. Sometimes we sit with people regularly throughout the season. Sometimes we mix it up. For me, though, I find it to have been useful through the previous six seasons to try to build relationships with people that maybe I don't get the opportunity to a lot of the time. and try to sit with them month after month, meeting after meeting, and have some accountability with those guys. And I look around the room and I know I've sat at table with some of you, whether it's some of our teens or some of our adult guys, to get a chance and talk about our struggles and just be very plain and honest when it comes to just opening and reading through God's word or in our conference this weekend. just talking about our struggles when it comes to our relationships and living a life of biblical manhood and what that looks like. We had a great time of table prayer at my table yesterday. We just got to lift each other up and try to encourage each other to live our lives in a way that's going to glorify God as, I won't say definitions, perhaps, of what it looks like to be biblical manliness. And Andy Naselli, I thought, did a fantastic job. We have a 20-page packet of what is his level of teaching here, which is, I think, according to his bio, two PhDs. And it reads like it. It is packed with so much information in here. And he took us through this over the two days. And although I got to only attend one of the days, I got to go through 13 pages of this with our guys yesterday morning. And it's just packed with so much good information in here, rooted in scripture. Everything that he talked about was going back to scripture. And he's explaining to us, in the sessions yesterday, our arguments for complementarianism. And he gets into broad and narrow, and he talks about the differences of those. But what he's really trying to do for us is to show us from the pages of scripture, what is God's design and plan for men and for women? And then what does that look like in our relationships with spouses or kids in the workplace? What's it like here at church? And he took us through each of those. And I want to share two takeaways that I walked away with yesterday morning, went home and talked with my wife about. The first would be something that he talked about for one of his arguments for complementarianism. Argument five is what stuck out to me. This whole argument is based on God's design for men and women as being different, looking at common sense from natural theology. Yeah, remember two PhDs. And what I really liked about this is that he started this argument going back to Genesis 1, 2, and 3, looking at God's original creation and his plan for man, the creation of Adam, the creation of Eve, and all before the fall, making an argument that God has laid out a blueprint for biblical manliness before sin even entered into the world, that he's already arranged what Adam's roles and tasks are and what Eve's roles and tasks are. And to transition from there to what really stuck out to me, and I'm just going to read a little bit of the writing from this. He's talking about how scripture and natural revelation, or general revelation, they speak together with one voice. And Anceli was doing this motion a lot during that part of his talk, and was saying that the two things have to work together, and that scripture tells us a lot about the differences in God's design for men and women. but also we can look around in creation. And it's only when we put the two things together, what we can observe naturally in the world around us, and with God, what God's revealed to us, that we can see a full and clear picture. Now here he's discussing how one of his friends and colleagues would apply this idea to men and women. He says, here's how Joe Rigney would apply this to men and women. It's a short little bit. He says that there's an immutable givenness to reality that is unavoidable and inescapable despite the best efforts of rebellious humans to subject it to their will. Speaking about the roles of men and women. It says, and this givenness is such that we need not always appeal to scripture directly to justify Christian ethical teaching. Christian ethical teaching is universal, normative, creational, and natural. There are some things that we need the Bible for. Nature will not tell you that Christ died for sinners and calls you to repentance and faith. You need a Bible for that, but you do not need a Bible to know what a man is, and what a woman is, and what marriage is, and what sex is for. Such things are a part of natural revelation and are sufficiently clear to all men everywhere that our refusal to acknowledge them will condemn us on the last day. And the extension he took from this passage, this thought, this idea, is he then took us to Romans 1. And he pointed out to us how Romans 1 will describe that men in our fallen state and in our sin are going to repress what we see in the world around us in God's creation. Will even repress what scripture will say. And that man has exchanged what God has designed instead for what is immoral and unnatural. And I think we see that in the world around us today. We got to talk very frankly about that in our sessions yesterday. And that brings me to my second big takeaway, is that our last session yesterday, for however long it was, the way I recall it, it seems like we had 40, 45 minutes where he's wrapped up going through his teaching, and he just opened up to a room of guys. And he just said, what kind of questions do you have? And for 40 minutes, question after question came from guys in this church just peppering him about anything that we wanted to talk about or get his opinion on. And I thought that was marvelous to see, because we were going everywhere, not just about this, but anywhere that that manhood and womanhood could be involved in families and education and church. And he was, I think, just very approachable in that, but he was very cautious in answering, making sure that he's giving his viewpoints when there are those and taking it to scripture when he can. But I thought it was just great to hear our guys speak out. And it wasn't a lull of silence. Each minute was occupied with that discussion. And that's my second big takeaway, just the encouragement that I got from that. When I reflect on 5D, I'd like to reflect on just the types of involvement in discipleship that I've gotten through this church. And my history with CPC goes way back from when the school was here, and my involvement with the school, it taught me a lot, gained a lot of knowledge and information. But I would say discipleship didn't really start until my later teens. in that time, where through the church and the involvement with the school and the church, I got to know Pastor Matt Nicholson, who has had an impact on many of young guys, guys my age, late 20s, early 30s, because he was prominent in that time with us as teenagers. I would say he's really my first discipler at that time. And I reflect back on all the time that he poured into us, not only like in youth group, but he would come and teach classes sometimes. He'd fill in as a sub. He would meet some of us that were going to the school early before school some days and have a Bible study with us. We had our own little group. He would meet with us outside of like church time and school time to get to know us, to study God's word with us, to teach us. It's really starting with him that I think I began to understand not just knowledge and had knowledge, but I got to understand, like, what does it mean to walk the Christian life? And I got to see him model that. And to use another one of our speaker's analogies from yesterday, to probably misuse it in the way he intended, but he was talking about an interaction that he had with someone. They went and talked about their differing viewpoints. And one of the summative statements that he gave that individual was that, like, if only that person could come and just watch him and his life and his wife and their family and how they interact, then they would really see what the Christian life is all about. I think it's what discipleship gives us. It gives you that chance to get to know someone, invite them into your life, whether that's very actively or maybe more passively, just talking about your experiences. For those that are older, have some more wisdom to share with us, perhaps. I think that Pastor Matt really started doing that with me. I got to get to see how he interacts with his kids, with his family, as an adult with a job, interacting with the church. I got to get a peek in to how he conducted himself and what it looked like for him. It got continued from there, and it's still connected to the church, because I finished up high school and get into college, and we had an early college group at that point. And many of us are still from the same group as before. But we had enough guys in their late teens, early 20s, college age, some even like mid-late 20s, that we'd get together every week. And we'd either spending time together or doing Bible studies together. And it's there I think I really learned how to study the Bible. My now brother-in-law was the one that ran that group, and getting to know him, not just as a family member, but before that, as my early college and career leader, he, to me, taught me how to actually open the words of Scripture. and how to intentionally read through something and pull application from it, how to rely on scripture to explain itself, how to find cross-references and use study tools. He taught me a lot of that. And as I've transitioned from there, sort of getting to like my mid to late 20s, and that brother-in-law had moved away, unfortunately, I think I would say that my next, like, discipler or relationship would come from Ernie Bowman, who at the time was our associate pastor. And getting to know him, I think he really taught me how to understand scripture in a way that I can teach it. And I got more involved with the youth group at that point. And he and I have a lot of conversations about how to prepare a lesson. What does that look like? What do you need to do? How can you study in a way that's going to prepare you to have to explain it to another person? He gave me books on how to do those things, how to teach exegetically and just great advice at that time for a mid to late 20-year-old, starting off in like an early marriage as well. So discipleship has been an important thing for me. Without it, I don't know Well, I think honestly, left to my own, I probably wouldn't have developed those skills. And it's great for me to see the young guys in our youth group over there with us. Because at that point, they stop being, in my eyes, like youth group members that I'm a sponsor for and responsible for. But I can sit at the same table with them as young men and have a different sort of relationship, where it's let's talk about what it means to be young guys. Okay, I'm getting older. What it means to be youngish guys and like how can we like learn about manliness in this way and sort of bring down some barriers that sometimes are up when I'm a youth sponsor. Sometimes can take them down in those moments and become vulnerable and talk to them about challenges as some of like the older guys do with me. They talk to me about the challenges that you've had whether that's in careers or family or just life in general. And I'd say it's had a lasting impact, profound impact for the last six seasons. I'm excited to see how season seven goes. I think we have a great topic. I think we have a great start. And I'm excited to see what we can learn from it. And Pastor, thank you for the opportunity to talk about it. Good evening. Thanks, Pastor Jim, for this opportunity. Thanks for those great words you just shared with us, John. You stole a little of my thunder, so we may be echoing a few of your thoughts. But yeah, thanks for the opportunity, Pastor Jim. Yeah, we just had a really great, great time this weekend as men, encouraging one another. Shout out to Scott and Laura, great food, all their help staff. Yeah it's just it's just so nice to come together away from the business life sit together with men open up be vulnerable with one another it's a really special thing to do. I know for me that's just. It's out of my comfort zone initially when we started doing 40 men several years back. So as the years have gone on, I've tried to keep coming further and further out of that comfort zone. Pastor Jim does a great job of coaxing that out of guys. So I appreciate him for that. Yeah, so just an awesome weekend rolled right into this morning with our speaker, Dr. Naselli. His message this morning on steadfastness with Job fits perfectly with our theme this year, the long haul, enduring. Our book should be awesome this year. It's called Endure. And there's really great discussion questions in the back that are going to lead to what I think is going to be a great time of table talk at each and every meeting that we have throughout this season. Yeah, Andy Naselli really put us to work at this conference. He got our minds working. We got into some really deep topics as far as complementarianism goes, egalitarianism. But mainly, we're focusing on biblical manhood, biblical womanhood. and we're celebrating the beautiful differences that exist between men and women. So, a few things he said really connected with me and challenged me. At one point, I think it was on Friday night, he gave four or five exhortations. Two of those, specifically the first one was, study this issue for yourself. It can be applied not only to this particular discussion topic, but everything in the Bible. It was a huge challenge to me because sometimes I'm hesitant to debate or discuss spiritual issues or things from the Bible because I don't know it well enough. So, you know, really encouraging us to dig into his word, find out why we believe what we believe. That's something that I know I need to get better at. So that stuck out to me. The other one was just, and I already alluded to it, just loving and celebrating how God designed the family, how he designed man, how he designed woman. It's not just acknowledging it, it's loving it and celebrating it. When our society right now is screaming at us to not do that. And what I really appreciated about Andy was just how bold he was to speak the truth. Like John said, he stuck to the scripture, backed everything up. Sometimes he would share personal opinions or just applications of things, and that's fine. I mean, people are going to disagree on that. That's Christian liberty. But I just overall appreciated his extreme boldness on the topic. One of the quotes that he gave was, we've taken niceness to an extreme. It's robbed our ability to have godly courage. Now, I like how he said this, too. He says, our default mode should be gentle. But there's a time and a place for righteous violence, as I believe is what he said, which I love. Because we've gotten away from that. I'm scared to say things in the workplace. I mean, it's a tough time that we're in right now. But we really do need to know that what's in God's word and not be afraid to stand behind that. Just some general comments on 40 men and men discipling men. It's really been meaningful to me. Pastor Matt, who John has already mentioned, is the first man who came into my life when I was coming into seventh grade and invested in me. He showed up at this church right when I was heading into youth group just in time and just developed an amazing relationship with him, seventh through 12th. He married Casey and I. I still have a relationship with him. I was texting with him just the other night. We were texting about football, but still. So he made a huge impact in my life. And before Pastor Jim, this church has been blessed with amazing pastors. But before Pastor Jim, we never truly had a booming men's ministry. So when he came in and launched that right away is really when things started to click with me as far as getting into my Bible, being interested in reading books. I've really appreciated these last couple of years with Pastor Michael, how he's started up some small groups. We call it On Target, where we take what we do on Saturdays for 4D, we take it a step further and we meet more often. We go through another book and we challenge each other even more pointedly. So that's been a huge blessing to me. Let's see here So it's the general point of the Christian walk being a lifelong journey. We can't do it alone So I'm just just really grateful that for the group of men in this church that I can take this journey with I want to leave you with this too. So my wife actually just read a book by Tim Keller It's called the prodigal God and I just I had to share this because it was so fitting with what we've been talking about so there's a there's a part of the book where he's talking about community and in your church or just in general, your community. And he actually quotes our friend C.S. Lewis. I want to read this quote for you. Christians commonly say that they want a relationship with Jesus, that they want to get to know Jesus better. You will never be able to do that by yourself. You must be deeply involved in church, in Christian community, with strong relationships of love and accountability. That's exactly what we're trying to do here at CBC with 40 men. It's also what the ladies are trying to do with their ministry, their Bible studies and their book studies that they go through with Lori. Maybe you're one who doesn't typically participate in that. Could be for a number of reasons. You're shy. Maybe you feel like you won't fit in. Maybe you think you're too busy and taking on another responsibility is just too much. It's 90 minutes a month, one Saturday. It's really not much of our time. Maybe you're one who, you know, you feel like if you didn't help plan or lead it, like you're not usually one to just join it. So I would just challenge anybody who's not participating in these amazing men's and women's ministries that we have. Just take a look at your heart. Fear of man and pride is something that's plagued me for years. I know that's everybody's natural sin. I just would implore you to give this a shot if you've never been. It's a great time. Nothing to be scared of. We just talk and encourage one another and pray and read and we're challenged and it's just a tremendous blessing in my life. So thanks Pastor Jim for leading this for us. All right, so good evening, everybody. Pastor Jim has asked me to take just a couple of minutes tonight, share some thoughts about not only my personal testimony, but also about how that relates to the men's ministry. For those of you who don't know me, I see a lot of unfamiliar faces in here, so I'll go ahead and introduce myself. My name is Austin Jesse. I've been attending this church for all of my life. Parents go here, grew up in church. I was saved at age nine or 10, baptized shortly thereafter. To start off, I want to talk about sort of my own personal experience, which is going to give me some credibility for some thoughts that I want to offer later on. So I would say that this is, this overall topic of complementarianism and sort of the way that men and women work together has actually not been something that I've received a whole lot of teaching on, to be completely honest with you. And so it was definitely very interesting to hear that talk for the first time. I had some very competing ideas when I was growing up about what life should look like, specifically what marriage should look like, what different things should look like. I thought that, you know, there were two types of men. There were the really macho men who would go out and kill things and do, you know, super awesome, great things. And I thought that there were just, you know, the regular men who stay at home, did whatever. Sort of thinking back to when Mr. Bowman, then Pastor Ernie, used to be a pastor here, he would talk a lot about the idea of living a quiet life of godly dignity, right? And to be completely honest with you, I thought he was a little bit crazy. I was like, living quiet doesn't sound like a lot of fun, right? This sounds boring and repetitive, and I don't know what you're talking about here. I believe that sort of this idea came a little bit out of pride, and just taking a hard look at myself, I was able to realize that. I've seen a lot of different kinds of people, specifically in my own peer group, that have a wide spectrum of varying beliefs on this topic. So there are tons and tons of different viewpoints, even just in the Christian world, I believe, in my peer group, but then also stepping outside of that. I would describe many of the people in my own peer group as maybe being a little bit lost. They don't necessarily have a whole lot of purpose. They're still searching out, and maybe they're still holding onto a belief that the main purpose of their life is to go out and be that super macho man try and do all the cool things as much as they can. So like I was saying, this conference is the first time that I actually heard what a basic theology of what men and women should look like together. There are plenty of different sermons and things that I've heard and referenced over the years, but to have someone as smart as Dr. Naselly come in and just give a massive massive amount of information, and especially a great packet of just being able to clarify everything, was definitely super important. So one of the points that Pastor Jim wanted me to cover was some of the men who have had an impact on my life. It's impossible to do this without mentioning my dad and my grandparents, first and foremost, as always setting an example for me. However, God has also blessed me with several other men in my life. Through some of my own experiences with these men, I want to give examples of character traits that I believe a man should possess. And I want to sort of start with a common denominator, something that's going to be present with every single man I talk about. And that common denominator is humbleness. So just as I'm going through this and talking about these men, I want you to keep that in the back of your mind. The first thing that comes to mind are some of the men here at CBC. Mr. Thurman and John Cole teaching Sunday School early on had a huge impact in guiding discussion, preaching some more heavier topics maybe than what I'd heard in Awana, things like that. Discipleship certainly didn't stop there, however. One of my, I think my earliest memories of discipleship actually happening was I was here at the church for some Guardian Day event, we were taking care of the church, and Pastor Matt took me across the street to his house and we played catch for a while. Just something very simple, but during that talk, we were talking about life, we were talking about school, talking about how everything was going. So Pastor Jim has a huge emphasis on that happening in sort of a more formal setting. And having monthly meetings where you can come in and you're going to be asked hard questions about your life is incredible. Just thinking about some more men that have had an impact on my life. Mr. Bowen has had a huge impact on my life. Even something as simple, we were going through some difficult life circumstances, family health wise, and you know, took me to the batting cages, we ate some donuts and played some church softball. And sometimes that's the only thing you need to do to help someone out is just be there and be able to listen to them. All these men that have had an impact on my life have been very humble about how they do it, right? They're not necessarily going out and being like, oh, here's my weekly quota of men that I've discipled this week, how are you doing, you know? It's not something that they have placed a huge emphasis on. A few years ago, we had a wonderful speaker at one of our men's retreats, Tom Kinsey, and he presented the idea of living as a brotherhood, right? And our theme for that year was iron sharpening iron, and using his own unique perspective for that. He said something to me in an email after that that I still carry with me to this day, and I want to paraphrase him as saying this. So, be careful and watch for yourself when you tell stories that you're not the hero of your own story. Glorify God through your experience, Watch yourself using the word I. If you look at every single one of these men that I've talked about, they've done exactly this. They haven't said, here's a time in my life where I have personally overcome this through my own abilities, right? They've said, here's a time in my life where I've struggled and where God has stepped in and really helped me. So just starting to wrap everything up here. What does it look like to be a man then? Well, I would say that first and foremost means following God's design in the home. This is sort of a little bit contrary to what I was saying again, where you don't necessarily have to go out and be the biggest Navy SEAL ever, right? You can have a perfectly fine life and still give tons of glory to God wherever you're at. The idea of living quietly doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be quiet, right? It doesn't mean that you're being silent at all. None of these men in my life have ever been silent about what they believe in through the gospel. And through their impact of just quiet, ordinary things, they've had a huge impact on my life in a loud manner. So something that Dr. Naselli talked a little bit about and that I want to focus on for my last few minutes here is the idea of being a good man. And sort of going off of what Mr. Dietz was saying earlier about, you know, we become too nice or too gentle or things like that, I also wanted to use this quote, there are times when being a man means being righteously violent. And I think the distinction between a godly man and you know, what society portrays to us is that idea of being righteously violent and being able to fight for what you believe in. Not only just being a nice guy and, you know, bowing down before society, but actually standing up for what true manhood means. I don't think this necessarily means being a stoic, and I think Dr. Nasselly was very careful to emphasize from both sides, and he actually said, you know, make sure that you know which side, he used the example of a horse, right? make sure that you know which side of the horse you're falling off to in your views here. And so he was very, I thought, very concise in being able to target both sides of the political aisle. So sort of moving through all that, Pastor Jim also wanted me to give you a challenge. And I think what I would challenge you all to do would be first and foremost to come to men's ministry, because it's awesome. But secondly, I think developing relationships with people not in your generation are huge. A good example I can think of this is Mr. Cantrell. So he has always been someone that has talked to me, you know, been a great youth group discussion leader, and has had a really You know, a focus on working with other members of the youth group, which I think is really great. So I would encourage all of you at Men's Ministry to go sit with people who aren't your age, right? Find new tables, sit with different people. You'll learn a lot. It's incredible to go and sit at a table with a bunch of guys and be able to learn from their perspective each and every week. And lastly, I just wanted to echo something that Dr. Naselly said. He was talking about the time is now, right? Manhood is under attack, especially God's design for the home is under attack. And so I really encourage all of you to just step up and be able to defend and be able to witness to the culture what being a true man and what the actual design for the home should be like. Thank you. OK. So we've got about five minutes until we've got to wrap it up right. So my name is John Lovejoy. had approached us men and had asked us to just really share our experience with 4D and what it's meant to me as a husband and as a father. And I think, more importantly, I think, in this setting, as a church member here at Calvary, and what it's done in my life. So first, I want to thank Jim, Scott, all the volunteers, the ladies that did the food. Anna, I think you're here. I don't know if anybody else is here that was in the food. Great job, it was awesome. We had tacos the last night we were there and then Saturday morning was like these cake, steak, pancakes? Did I get that right? So it was really, really a great time and I think we had about 60, 70 guys so that was really a blessing to see just such a great outpouring of men. that were dedicated and truly convicted to really begin to meet as men and begin to grow in Christ. So the two different groups that I want to talk to you today about is really those that have attended and haven't attended a 4D. So first, I'm going to talk to those that haven't. And I really want to say that you're missing out on a tremendous blessing. Just being together with fellow CBC members, even some that are not members, old and young alike, it's just such a blessing to be with men at least once a month and hear what's going on in their lives, young and old, being able to pray for one another, being able to really walk with one another in a specific book. Right that you're reading or just really? Just trying to be better men for our families for our children for our wives So I think that's really what you're missing out on the accountability the ability to grow as a Christian I think you're missing out on so I want to challenge you to come to the next 40 that we have I think it's going to be a phenomenal blessing to you. And for those that have attended 40 and continue to sign up for the next 40, I want to challenge you in a few different things. First, to be steadfast. Coming off this past Saturday or Friday and Saturday, right, there's like a high that you might feel, right? Don't lose that, right? Do not lose that. Do not lose that fervency that you might have that God has maybe Put in your heart, whatever it might be, don't let that, don't let that go. Don't, don't, don't get away from that. Next is truly be committed. Come to the next, right? If you sign up for 4D, we want to see you there. And if you see a name on that list, and you see somebody that's your friend, just be like, hey, are you coming? Right? You're going to be there, Pastor Jim? Want to make sure. So just be committed. And then be productive, right? Don't allow 4D to just kind of, you know, great, it was awesome, I had a great blessing from that, but I'm not implementing things, maybe in my marriage or in my workplace or with my children, right? So those are my two challenges to the two different groups that are here. My takeaways. Andy was, I told Hannah when I got home on Friday, I said, I can't wait for Saturday. I feel like the things that he was talking about was so in depth, but he was so concise in the way that he was teaching and the way that he was, um, um, It just was phenomenal. So I really was excited going into Saturday morning to hear really the rest of what he had to say. And it was so rich. I told Hannah, and it's a plan that I'm going to share with you as far as one of my steps that I want to do, is we want to take that packet and we really want to dive into it. We want to talk about the different broad ideology and then the narrow ideology. complementarism, what does that truly mean? And I want to share an experience that in my Christian walk of being a part of a church movement that was on the narrow spectrum of complementarism and then being a part of a church movement that was on a broad spectrum of of complementarism. And hearing Andy talk about it, it finally began to click in my mind what I experienced with both. And I don't want to name names or churches or individuals, but it was something that God was preparing, and I think both my heart and confirming with Hannah, in her heart as well. So we really want to dive into this and really begin to read up on what both of these arguments are, how we can begin to disciple other people and the benefits of having a broad viewpoint of complementarism and the benefits that that bring to a marriage, I think just as a man and as a woman. So more to come on that. I say I'd like to be here in another year to really talk about, OK, what did you take away from that? So more to come on that, right? That's the homework. And the argument that really spoke to me that Annie was talking about was argument number four. And the argument was husbands and wives have different obligations that flow from their distinct identities as men and women. And he gave a ton of verses and books, but one saying, I went back on Friday night and even Saturday when I was talking to Hannah, I said he kept saying he would make an argument and he would say in his life with his wife, it's just when we do it right, it's just perfect. And he just kept saying that with just such passion and conviction, and I want that, right? I want that for all the men that are here, right? I want that for all the marriages that are here. So, I really was excited to hear him and what he was talking about with the different identities as far as the obligations that we have between the man and manhood and womanhood. So, more to come on that. I still think there's just so much more homework that I have to do, but it sparked something in my heart. And I want to leave you with the verse that I think is just fitting. And it's really the verse 440. And it's in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 7. And it says, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. So that's our verse this year. I hope that you... are going to fight the good fight, that you're going to finish the race, and of course, keep the faith. Well, I trust you've been encouraged and you've made it. You've made it to the second half of our service where I plan to preach for about 45 minutes. Just kidding. I am going to read some verses for you. You've heard these before. Genesis 1, 26 through 28. Then God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them. And God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. skipping down a few verses, not to get out of the context, but to save a little time, because we're still in the same context when God says in verse 31, that God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. God's design for marriage and gender and sexuality is good. The way God made the world is good. And one of the things that Dr. Nasselli emphasized was whether with raising children or working with your spouse or members of the opposite sex or whatever it is, go with the grain. Work according to the way that God made the world. God's design is good. Jumping to the New Testament, Ephesians 5, verses 25 and following. Husbands, love your wives. as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church. The best illustration I've ever heard about these verses and loving your wife as your own body was from one of my professors in college who once got a thorn stuck in his foot in a way that he couldn't get it out for a while. It was in there for days. And he had to walk around. He talked about going to church that weekend when the thorn was still in his foot. And with every step, he was careful. He was aware of his foot every moment. Have any of us ever loved our wife like we love our own bodies? Have any of us ever considered the women in our life as worthy of that kind of attention and care? That's something to strive for. The passage continues, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. Not everyone in here is a man. Not everyone in here is a married man. But why does it matter that you believe what God says about marriage, gender, and sexuality? It matters because it is connected to the gospel that we proclaim. It refers to Christ in the church. is a picture, our marriage is a picture of what Christ did for us. The gospel that we proclaim is that Christ sacrificially loved us in a way that caused him to give of himself, think of that, the infinite God-man, giving of himself for sinners that he might sanctify her, and that's what husbands aspire to and seek to imitate in marriage. Why don't you join in standing while I pray and dismiss you. Thank you for your word, Father. The need of the hour is faith that works. Give us the ability to believe and live out what you say is good. And we ask this in your son's name, amen. You are dismissed.