Capital Community Church is a people awakened to a holy God. If you are searching for a new church home, or from out of town looking for a church to worship with, or simply seeking for answers, please join us for worship at 9 o'clock a.m. every Sunday morning. If you have any questions, please email us at info at CapitalCommunityChurch.com. We pray this sermon will help you grow deeper in your walk with Jesus Christ. How's everybody doing? Why don't y'all take a seat, get comfortable. We'll have more friends and visitors and members come in and join us. So y'all take a seat. Since the inception of Capital, the problem we've had is y'all are all so friendly. So it's such a good problem to be able to make y'all try to sit down. So that's a good problem to have. Well, good evening and welcome to our first question and answer with Pastor Grant. And yeah, ooh, I know. This is going to be a great evening. You know, I explained the last two Sundays regarding the importance of why we do Q&As with Grant. And not only do you have another opportunity to hear from our senior pastor, but it really is an opportunity for also for Q&A is also a time for you to be able to hear questions that maybe you've had. whether it's been a season of life that the Lord has put you in, or maybe it's a question that maybe a friend or a co-worker or the like has asked, and you thought, man, I don't know how to answer that question. The great thing about Q&A is that everybody will be able to learn and to grow from this time. And for the last two weeks, and even up for just a A few hours ago, we've had a lot of people submit questions in a good way at the very last minute. And so there are a lot of really good questions that you all submitted. And they are, some of them are deep. Some of them are, we can poke jabs at Grant and to be able to, you know, to make fun of him a little bit. But anyway, but this is, Q and A's are great. I'm going to pass the baton to Grant to kind of give you an idea of why we're doing this Q and A. So Grant. Yeah, I know you kind of labeled it as grill grant time this morning. But really, you know, there's a lot of places you can go look. You all have the internet, so if you have a question about a specific Bible passage, I mean, a lot of times you can go figure out the answer. But the reason why I wanted to do this is for you, practically speaking, just to care for you, shepherd you, because I know questions come up all the time in sermons, and you're thinking about how to apply them, or maybe you have a doctrinal implication that you would like to flesh out a little bit more. And I really just wanted to give you an opportunity to do that, and to ask those questions, and to the best of my ability, to provide those answers. You know, There's many questions about the Bible that I don't know. I'm a lifelong student of the Bible as well, so I'm trying to learn just like many of you are. So if I don't know, I'll be honest, and I'll just tell you I don't know, and I'll do my best to look it up. But my intention is to help you with the best that I can in terms of answering your questions. I got this idea Just from looking at the example of many of my heroes, for example, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, I know many of you have heard of him and you've heard me talk about him a lot. I'm writing my dissertation on Dr. Lloyd-Jones, but he would do this quite often with his congregation, where he would come and answer their questions. give practical insight about how to apply the doctrines in their lives. And one of the things he would do, actually, is something that we're going to try later this summer called The Fellowship, where we're going to flip it, and we're going to give you the opportunity to start answering some of the questions. but you've got to have a chapter and verse. You can't just say, this is what I think. You need to come with a chapter and verse and say, hey, this is why I believe the way we do. And Lloyd-Jones would basically moderate a discussion with the church, and people would come and give their biblical opinions on an issue. But he would model that himself. And so would R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Alistair Begg. So I've watched these guys. who have gone before me, who have done this, and the pastor who trained me most hands-on was actually my father-in-law, Grace Hanna's dad, Dr. Carl Broege, and this is something that he does every single Tuesday. He has a Bible Q&A show on the radio in South Carolina called The Bible Line. So I used to go into the, radio sound booth and hear him answer those questions. So this is something I've seen my heroes do and I thought, you know what, I need to just bite the bullet and come out here and answer your questions. So let's do it. Amen. Well, let me pray for our time and then we'll begin. Let's bow our heads in prayer with me. Eternal Lord and Heavenly Father, we're grateful for another opportunity to gather on this Lord's Day and to be able to worship. Father, thank you for this unique opportunity to come and to be able to hear a time of question and answers. And Lord, as these questions are being asked by Pastor Grant, we ask that you will give them wisdom to answer according to your word. And I pray also, Lord, that these questions that we hear together as a church family, Lord, they will continue to edify us and teach us, as Grant just said. And I pray, Father, for this time to be a wonderful time for all of us to learn and to see, no matter the theological, the life issue, whatever the question may be, Lord, that we will learn and draw closer to you in this time. So Father, we thank you again, and it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Well, to give you full disclosure, one, Grant has not seen any of these questions. Yeah, so I didn't give him a heads up. Yeah, that's right. So yeah, yeah, yeah. So I didn't give him a heads up outside of just a moment ago. I did tell, and I'll let you guys know, we had over 75 questions submitted over the last two weeks. And so I will say and be honest with you, I don't know if we'll be able to make through all of them, but we are going to try our best to be able to get through a number of them very quickly. And Grant, the most important question is, do you prefer North Carolina or Texas barbecue? It's not even a question. Texas barbecue. But which North Carolina barbecue, right? Because there's, is it eastern? Yeah, eastern and western. Somebody tried to tell me the other day there were three. I was like, hmm, okay. Grant, this comes, this question, I want to give this to you first because this one has really been on my heart the last two weeks. This has been submitted, don't know who, by one of our little friends of our church. Pastor Grant, sometimes I get mad at my sister and I'm mean to her. And I'm so worried that God will not forgive me. My parents say if I repent and apologize to her, I will be forgiven. But she's mean to me. What do I do? Obviously this child, it doesn't look like they're in here, they're up in Adventure Club, but maybe if you're a parent you can show them the live stream later. But what I would say to any child is to make sure that they have come to know Jesus personally as their Lord and Savior. And obviously the Lord has pricked this young child's conscience and they feel guilt for their sin, which is good. Actually, that's how God designed our consciences to work, and they need to understand what Christ has done for them at the cross, that He's provided a means of atonement to cleanse us of all of our sin. So that's the first thing I would want to be having with this child is a conversation about where they stand with God. And then I would assure them that if they do know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, that all of their sins are already paid for. Done. Remember Jesus said, to telestai on the cross. It is finished. It's paid in full. They're already paid for. Now, if we have unconfessed sin, that does affect our fellowship with the Lord. And that's why John says in 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. That's not talking about current propitiation. That's talking about fellowship with God. And so you can assure that child, look, if you sin against your sister, you know, one, ask her forgiveness, but most importantly, ask forgiveness from the Lord. Say, Lord, man, I did not mean, I did not want to hit her. She just made me so angry. You know, before I could think about it, that's what I did. And ask the Lord for forgiveness. And God promises that He will forgive. and that our relationship with Him will be restored. And honestly, that's not just something that a child needs to know, that's something that all of us need to remember. Because we're so, you know, we all sin in a number of ways, and we need to remember that God loves His children, and God is ready for fellowship. So we can go to Him as our kind Father, and confess our sin and know that He receives us. I mean, that's the promise for every Christian as his child. We've had a number of questions submitted that were in regards to the use of social media. And this question is a little lengthy, so I'm going to summarize it the best I can. Should Christians use social media to fight cultural battles? It seems, this is the question, I continue on the question. It seems a lot of people are, like a few people that you know, are mainly correct on theological issues, but constantly throw out provocative truths that are unprovoked. Like when someone they're referring to tweeted that men should not have long hair. That may be right, but just seems to stir the pot and not actually be helpful of a way of teaching. This person is an example of a lot on both sides who try this tactic. So should we engage or encourage that or disengage on social media due to the short soundbite way of communicating? Yeah, so Jesus says that the mouth speaks what's in the heart, right? So whatever comes out of your mouth, or whatever comes off your thumbs on your social media feed, that's an indicator of what's in the heart. And we have to be careful. You know, we need to not trust our heart always. You know, the heart is deceitful and very wicked. So we need to be very careful about social media and what we put out in public on social media. And this is, I use social media, I use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook a little bit. But this, you know, James says that the tongue is very deadly, and the tongue can cause all sorts of issues. And this is what we're seeing with social media. This is, I think, why the question is being asked, is we've seen all these conflagration of fire and anger and wrath and malice and slander poured out on people, and Christians bearing false witness even against other Christians, and Christians slandering other Christians. So this All is, you know, social media is where sin is just spilling out, out of people's hearts. And so in that sense, it's really no different from anything else. It's just easier. We need to be careful about what we are speaking and what we are saying and what we are putting out on social media. I think one of the big differences with social media, though, is that everybody sees it. You know, you say something to your neighbor, you speak an unkind word to your neighbor, you can go apologize to your neighbor, and the issue's dealt with. You say something on social media that's unkind, you can apologize, but it's out there in the public domain, and we're accountable for our words. So in that sense, we have to be very, very careful. There is a verse in 2 Timothy, I'll just read it, where Paul is talking about confronting, and this is I think what the question is in direct reference to, confronting opponents. And Paul says this, he says, correcting his opponents with gentleness, that God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. I think that when we engage opponents, we need to speak the truth in love, and speak the truth kindly, not with vitriol and anger, because we're trying to win people to Christ. Right? We're trying, this is what Paul's saying, this is 2 Timothy 2.25, He says, the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. So if we come out and we're banging people's heads that disagree with us, our chances of winning them to Christ are zero. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. We need to remember these people are under the control of Satan. They're in Satan's dominion. They're in the world. And our job is to be salt and light and to win these people. Now, when we're talking about the culture war, yes, we need to confront the issues. We need to do that. That's not something that we should shy away from. We should speak the truth. There's numerous issues that if we didn't speak the truth, the world would simply be overcome by evil. We should be speaking the truth on issues like abortion, on issues like marriage, on issues like medicinal marijuana use, on Issues like raising children on issues like what's being taught in the public school like in Florida right now That's an important thing for Christians to talk about and weigh in on because it affects the common good But we just need to do all of that with love and kindness now I'm gonna caveat that and say sometimes the most loving thing to do is is to speak a truth to wake somebody up. For example, was John the Baptist loving when he told the Pharisees, you brood of vipers, who warned you to repent of the wrath to come or flee from the wrath to come? Was that a loving thing to say? Well, it doesn't sound like it on face value, but it was. Jesus He's the most loving man who's ever existed. And he basically called people the son of perdition, the children of the devil. Jesus called people out. But he did so, I think, with compassion and love. But sometimes his words don't always sound loving, but I promise you he did so with the intentionality of love in his heart. And this is one other thing I think we should be very careful of, is judging people's intentions. We need to judge people's words, not their motives. You don't know the motives of somebody's heart. That's Jesus' point in the Sermon on the Mount when He says, Judge not, lest you be judged. Yeah, of course we're to judge what people put out there, but we don't know always their intentions, their motives. And remember, nor do they know yours, and that's why we need to be all the more careful with. what we're putting out there. So use caution, but I also think social media is a great tool to advance the gospel and to advance truth. So it takes wisdom to use it and to use it well, and that's what we should do. Yeah, thank you. You did a good job of answering a lot of those together. Moving on to some some practical questions. Moving on to some Bible and theological questions. This question is, I've been in several women's Bible studies where they said to put your name in a Bible verse and pray it back to God to claim it. Is this okay? Rewriting the verse with our name on it. I think it depends what verse you're talking about. In many ways, as we're studying the Scriptures, we need to first understand that the Bible is God's revelation of His Son to us. That's primarily what it is. If you're reading the Old Testament and you're putting yourself in every passage, that's going to be a very depressing thing. I'm David in this passage, and am I David with Bathsheba in this passage? That's not how the Bible is meant to be read. The Bible Jesus is saying, it actually points to me. When you lay out the Torah and the prophets and the writings, they're ultimately fulfilled in Christ. Remember Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount said, I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And so we, just in terms of understanding scripture, we need to first understand what it meant to the people that the Bible was written to. Originally, you know when Paul wrote Corinthians, he was writing it to an actual church in Corinth real people What did it mean to them first? We need to ask what does this teach about Christ and then we can begin to draw? application to ourselves now, I think probably what this person is asking about our Scriptures that contain promises All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ. And all of the promises are to us. Do you remember what Peter said at Cornelius' household? He said, the promise is for you and your household. And so the promises of God in Christ are given to us. And so if there is a promise of God, I think that we can understand that if we're a Christian, that we can understand that that promise is given to us as his people. And so if to help you understand that promise directly given to you, you know, you want to say, for God so loved Kenny that he gave his only begotten son, you know, I think that's fine. Yeah. If you will, Pastor Grant, please explain predestination versus free will. Does God choose me, or do I choose God? I read Romans 10, 8 through 13, and John 3, 16, but I also read Romans 8, 29 through 30, as God chooses. If I genuinely believe in Christ, then it is an act of my will. I willingly, excuse me, come to Jesus. God also predestined all who come to Jesus by faith. I remember the first time I heard about the dreaded doctrine of predestination on a youth trip. I was in a van, and I was actually up in the front seat. I don't know why I was in the captain's seat on a youth trip at 15 years old. And I heard in the back of the van somebody ask my youth pastor if he believed in predestination. I said, what is that, predestination? And a similar question is this. And I just remember my youth pastor saying, I do. And that shocked me because I was expecting him to say, no, of course not, how could you believe in and predestination, because I'd never heard that before. I'd never encountered that. I was a John 316 Christian, still am a John 316 Christian, that the offer of the gospel goes out to every single person. that were to offer Christ to everybody. And so it didn't make sense to me, okay, if we're gonna offer Christ to everybody, how could God predestine some people, right? And so that really caused angst in my soul, just of that thought. And so what I did is I, this is my junior year in high school. I sat down and I said, I'm just gonna read the Bible and figure this out. And I read the Bible cover to cover. And I just said, okay, what does the Bible actually teach about this? And here's the best place to start, I found, as I was looking at this. Yes, the gospel goes out indiscriminately to everybody, right? Paul goes out and preaches the gospel. Jesus sends out the apostles into the highways and the byways to preach the gospel. But how do we understand the response to the gospel? And what I found as I read the scripture is that the Bible describes people not as morally neutral, or righteous, or open to the gospel. But the Bible describes people all throughout the scriptures as spiritually dead, as alienated from the kingdom of God. of having a depraved will, a depraved mind. For example, I'll just read from Romans chapter 8, because I think this is really clear in Romans chapter 8. At the beginning of the chapter, he says, This is verse five. He says, for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. So if you're in the flesh, and that's basically flesh is the Greek word sarx, and it denotes your old man. He's talking about yourself in a sinful state, your pre-conversion state. That's who you are. You're in a fleshly state, an unspiritual state. He says if you're in the flesh, your inclination is to set your mind on the things of the flesh. But then he says, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. So we're not in this morally neutral category. We're hostile to God. That's the state in which We're born in which we live, as Paul says with the passage we looked at this morning in Ephesians 2, following the prince of the power of the air. We're in Satan's domain. We're not neutral to God, we're not friends of God, we're hostile to God. So the question then that you have to answer is, is what changes that? And this is how you get to predestination, is because you have to say, okay, if we're hostile to God, then a change has to take place for you to even respond to the gospel. Because we talk about free will. Yeah, you have a free will, but your will is enslaved to your sin. That's what Paul says in Romans 6. Your mind is at enmity with God. Your mind is set according to the flesh. So something needs to happen, a recalibration needs to happen in your soul, a work of God that Jesus calls the new birth, in order for you to respond. And that's why Martin Luther called it the bondage of the will. He said, yeah, the will is free, But it's actually free in sin. It's enslaved to sin. And that leads to this whole notion of what the Reformers called irresistible grace. That God must do a work of grace in your heart so that you can respond. And they called it irresistible grace. And that doesn't mean, obviously, we resist God's grace all the time. But there comes a point where God simply overcomes your resistance. And the classic example of this is Paul. Look at Paul. I mean, was Paul on the road to Christianity? No. He's on the road to Damascus to kill Christians. His heart is set against Christ. What happens? Jesus overcomes his resistance. Bam! Just like that. The same thing happens to us, and Paul describes this process in 2 Corinthians 4. If you want to read, look at 2 Corinthians 4. Paul's talking about us in our sinful state. He says in verse 4, he says in their case, he's talking about unbelievers, us in our natural state. He says in their case, the God of this world, that's Satan, has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. So we're blind, naturally, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. Then he says in verse 6, and this is the sovereign work of God in the heart, this is the irresistible grace. He says, for God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So God shines that spotlight in your heart to give you that knowledge of Him. And as a result, we respond in faith. So now the whole question then of election and predestination begins to make sense. Because now you ask, well, who does God shine the spotlight on? God very well could have shown the spotlight on every single person without exception. But we know that's not the case. We know, and God's not gleeful about this. God doesn't rejoice in the death and perishing of the wicked. But God, to demonstrate His grace and mercy, chose to save some. And chose to call. into His kingdom, people that don't deserve grace and mercy. And that's Romans chapter 8, right? This is the verse that was referenced in the question. Romans chapter 8, verse 28. If you want to look at this, this is sometimes called the golden chain of salvation because there's a link. Every link connects to the doctrine before it. They all stand or fall together. So you can't have one without the other. That's important to remember. But Paul says in Romans 8, 28, he says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose. That call is that irresistible grace, that shining, that spotlight into your heart. That's the supernatural call of God in the heart. And then he says, For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined, so you hear that word predestined, to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. Do you see the chain? It's those whom he foreknew. All those whom he foreknew come out on the other side glorified. You have all of these things applying to the same people. Foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified. Now people talk about the meaning of this word foreknow. Some people think it means that God foreknows the choices of people ahead of time, and on that basis, he then elects people or chooses people for salvation, that God looks down the corridors of time and sees who will respond to the gospel, and then predestines those people. But we know that's not right for at least two reasons. One, God never learns anything. Remember, God's outside of time. God's not in the past looking into the future trying to figure out something. He never has learned anything in His life. God is outside time and space. He's just as much in the future as He is in the present. God is not looking in the future to know something. Moreover, we also know, as we just talked about earlier, that because of our sinful state, no one is actually going to respond to the gospel outside of divine grace. So how can God foresee what will never happen outside of grace? And then third, if you look at what Paul's actually saying here, he doesn't say those whom he foreknew would choose him. He says those whom he foreknew. In other words, he knew people ahead of time. He foreknew them. In the Bible, Knowledge is a word that speaks of intimacy. Adam knew his wife and she conceived and bore a son. It's not ethereal head knowledge, it's intimacy. And so when Paul's saying God for new people, he's saying God for loved people. God, if you're a believer, God foreloved you before the foundation of the world in a special way. Not because of something in you that made you better than anybody else, but because he chose to set his affections on you, and on that basis, he predestines you to be conformed to the image of his son, and so on and so forth. Now, this helps us, I think, understand Christianity, so much, you know, why is this revealed? That's a great question to ask, and I think it's because it helps us understand that Christianity is all of grace. You know, that's what Paul says in Ephesians 1, that this is all to the praise of his glorious grace. When you understand that God set his affections on you before the foundations of the world, and chose you, and shone that light of the gospel into your heart, that changes everything. You say, wow. God, I know I didn't deserve this, but in your kind mercy, in grace, you chose to save me. And that puts everything in perspective. And it should, and you should, rather than fighting against it, this doctrine is revealed so that we would praise him and give him glory, so that in times of suffering, If you read 1 Peter, Peter says, I write to you the elect, the chosen exiles. And he's saying, I'm writing you and I'm revealing this to you that you're chosen so that you can endure the suffering that is taking place. That God chose you ahead of time and He chose you for specific purposes and that knowledge helps you endure the suffering. Do we know who the elect are? Well, I know that I think that you're elect because I know you. I've seen the fruit in your life. I have assurance of salvation, so I think that I'm elect, but I don't know who the elect are that I encounter. I preach the gospel to everyone. Spurgeon used to say if I knew who the elect were, if they had an E tattooed on their back, I would only preach the gospel to them. But I don't. So I preach the gospel to whosoever will. I preach it to everyone. I assume that everybody I talk to is elect. I assume that everybody is predestined. And if they reject the gospel though, and this is the comfort, I think this is where it's comforting this truth to the evangelist. It's what we were talking about earlier. My job is to sow the seed, but God is the one who gives the growth. So if I thought that someone's salvation depended upon my ability to coax them into the kingdom, I don't think I could sleep at night. I mean, if I thought that, you know, I talk to people all the time, and more often than not, they reject the gospel. Just last week, I laid out the gospel with a man, and at the end of the conversation on the phone, he said, thanks, I appreciate what you had to say, I hope you have a good day. That's it. If I thought in the end, in the final analysis, that his salvation depended upon my persuasiveness and not God's sovereign call on his life, I don't think I can handle that. So this is a comfort, I think, for us as we evangelize, as we endure suffering, and as we praise God for his grace. But we're not also to be hyper-Calvinist, where we say we're not gonna do missions and we're not gonna We preach the gospel to everybody. We preach Christ and Him crucified. And you know, Paul says, I became all things to all men that I might win some, 1 Corinthians 9. That's what we do. We become all things to all men that we might win some. And we leave the results to God. Well said. Well said. What's your favorite dessert? Seriously. Chocolate or clay cake. What is it? It's called chocolate eclair cake. Eclair? Yeah, chocolate eclair cake. It's just graham crackers, whipped cream, chocolate. It's very simple. I've had it for every birthday since I think I was five years old. What's your favorite restaurant in Raleigh? Seriously. I'd probably have to say Torchy's. Even though I don't like the devilish theme, I like that it's a little piece of Texas right here in North Carolina. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody want to go there after this? There you go. I know you will. All right, let's move into some, again, this will be a mix of Bible and church polity and church life here. We've had a number of questions in regards to church life here at Capitol, and so I'll ask a few of these. There's a lot that were submitted. have any responsibility in discipling or mentoring men who feel called to full-time or part-time ministry? Absolutely. You can read the Bible and you're not going to find a seminary or the idea of seminary in the Bible as an institution. What you find in the Scriptures are discipling relationships in the life of the church. And a great place to look at that and study that is Titus chapter 2, where you see Paul exhorting the older women to teach and train the younger women, and older men to teach and train younger men. And I actually think the best place to train pastors and future leaders in the church, ministers of the gospel, women leaders, Bible study teachers, the best place to train all these pupils in the church, because the church is the body of Christ. That's what Paul teaches in Ephesians 4 and Romans 12, and you go read those passages, 1 Corinthians 12, you go read those passages, and you see that we're all connected in the body, a spiritual body. And we're all to use our spiritual gifts for the edification of one another. And that means that I need you, and you need me, and you need the person next to you. And God fits us together, and God gives us different parts in the body in order to build one another up in the truth and in love so that we function as the living body of Christ in this world. So the church is God's plan A for discipleship. It's not the parachurch ministries. Parachurch ministries are great because many of them fulfill a function that the church cannot do or the church has failed to do. But God's plan A for discipleship is in the church. And so we need to be training men to be pastors. We need to be training women to teach other women. And that's something that I think, as you and I talk, Kenny, about this all the time, that's something that we're really passionate about. We're talking about starting a group here at this church called the Shepherd Society where we're just getting men together and not just teaching them theology. but teaching them practical aspects of ministry, how to evangelize, how to teach the Bible to a small group, how to lead in prayer, because we don't want to just raise up coffeehouse debaters. We want to raise up men that Satan is afraid of, men that are advancing the kingdom, and women that are advancing the kingdom. This is a conversation our elders are having right now, is what is the disciple that we want to produce here at Capitol? And we want to make disciples who are transcendent, and that means that they're focused on transcendent things. The catchphrase we use is disciples who are awakened to a holy God. Our world is concerned about everything that's transient. Everything that you can see, feel, and touch. But when you read about the Kingdom, it's about things that are transcendent. It's about the Kingdom, right? Jesus is always talking about the Kingdom of God and how things are in the Kingdom. If you want to be first, you must be what? Last. If you want to be the greatest, you must be the least. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. And so we need to be focused on transcendent things and raising up transcendent disciples that don't just have head knowledge, but are advancing that kingdom with very practical gifts. And so this is something that your elders are passionate about. This is something that we're praying about. This is something that we're seeking the Lord's direction on on how to implement. But yeah, this is very much in the forefront of our thinking and our passion. Grant, this is still in regards to church life and discipleship here at Capitol. Grant, you retweeted Owen Strand's tweet. I don't know when, but you retweeted, per Titus 2, that women being shepherd theologians for another woman. I pray I'm reading that question right. One, what does biblical womanhood look like in 50% of the church for the women? Number two, especially what do women without a husband, children, or household do? Let me stop there and then I'll ask. There's, yeah, it's a pretty, you want me to keep going? Sure, keep going, I'll just... And how can the church disciple men, and I think this quote is regards to the tweet, how can church disciple men to quote, man up and marry and lead families, quote, instead of playing video games? Isn't this a lack of biblical manhood instead of a failure of biblical womanhood? And then, again, it's lengthy. Do you see a role for women in the leadership at Capitol? The staff is lacking women, and where is their input to pastors and women's ministry? So lots of questions in that one. Yeah, yeah. you can answer for the first two, what does biblical woman look like for the women here at church, and as well as especially for women who do not have a husband, children, or a household? Maybe you want to take it? Yeah. So this is something that is so important because what our world is saying right now, our world is holding up an image of a woman that really is pretty much identical to a man just wearing heels. It's a woman does everything that a man does, they just do it looking different. And you even see this with all the women action heroes now. It's just, they do the exact same thing that a man does, they're just, you know, wearing maybe something slightly feminine. And that's not the Bible's picture of a woman. That's not the Bible's picture of a woman's role. And I think we're even seeing this in Ukraine right now, where it's the men that they're saying, no, you've got to stay and fight. Why is that? Well, because God naturally designed men in the garden and women in the garden equal as image bearers, but yet with separate roles. Separate roles to advance God's kingdom in the garden. Adam, in Genesis 2, is told to work and keep the garden. He's to protect the garden. He's to provide. He's to be the one that's defending. That's the language that's used in Genesis 2.10. The woman is given to Adam as an Azar, a helper, in those things. In the way that she comes alongside and helps Adam, and you see this in the way that the woman is cursed, in what domain is the woman cursed in Genesis 3? Childbearing. Why is that? And why is the man cursed in terms of the ground and the soil? Because the man's primary role was to provide and work the soil. How was the woman to help? She was to come along. If you're going to subdue a whole planet, what do you have to do? Produce kids. So the woman was given to come alongside and to help him. subdue this planet by raising children alongside with them and obviously giving wisdom and advice and help and comfort to her husband in those things. But their roles that they're given are different. And the roles in the household are also different as well. It doesn't, remember this is pre-fall. This is how God designed us before sin entered the world. In the household, Paul says in Ephesians 5, that the husband is the head of the wife, the kephalé of the wife, the leader of the wife, just as who? Christ is the head of the church. That Christ is the leader of the church, and the husband is the leader of his wife. And the exhortation he gives is he says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So that's a very tall demand, a high demand on men. And that speaks to the thing on video games. Are you really loving your wife and serving her if you come home from work and you turn on Call of Duty? I mean, I really don't see how, I mean, but, so yeah, but I don't just want to beat up on men, because I think our culture's beating up on men all the time right now. I think our culture is, you know, the worst thing you could possibly be, according to our culture, is a young white boy. You know, think about the message that the young men and the boys are hearing from our culture. They're hearing messages all the time of condemnation and that you're no good and your opinion doesn't matter. Well, how can we raise up boys to be leaders and men when that's the message that we're hearing? Going back to marriage, the other command that Paul gives, then on the flip side though, is to women, and he says, wives, submit to your own husbands, not to men in general, but to submit to your own husbands in the Lord. So sometimes I see men, and they're trying to lead their families, they're trying to be the spiritual leader of their home, but their wife won't submit to their leadership. And here's the reality, is that Paul doesn't say, husbands, make your wives submit. He says, wives, you have to submit. Because the husband could be, he could be a great leader. He could be Moses, he could be Patton, he could be Tom Brady. But if the wife won't submit to his leadership, then the marriage isn't gonna function properly. And Paul tells the wife, he says, submit to them in the Lord. So that constrains what that submission looks like. You don't obey your husband if he's telling you to do something outside of Christ commands. You obey your husband as much as you can under Christ. But Paul says when you do that, 1 Corinthians 7, he says, women, sometimes you will win an unbelieving husband through your submission to him. All the more, don't, the husband's, your submission to him is not dependent on necessarily how well he leads. Because you're to try and win him to Christ, and your submission to him will actually make him be a better leader. So I think that helps speak to the role of men and women in the home. And I'll just say this, with those roles come certain virtues that are unique to men and women. You know, Paul tells the Corinthians, act like men. Act like men. What does he mean by that? He means be strong, be courageous, stand your ground, right? Those are qualities that a man is supposed to have. A man is supposed to be brave. I want my boys to be brave young men. Am I necessarily expecting those exact same virtues from my girls? No, I'm expecting Different virtues. I'm expecting more compassion from them. I'm expecting more hospitality from them, more care from them. Virtues that go more along the lines of caring for other people. Not that men don't care for other people. These things overlap. But there's... there's certain virtues that are more feminine and certain virtues that are more masculine, not that there's overlap there. So when it comes to the church, the way that in the life of Israel, you know, you read the Old Testament and in the life of the church, those roles in the home are projected into the life of the church. So it's no wonder then if men are to lead their own households that men are called to be elders in the church, that men are called to be deacons in the church. It's no surprise in 1 Timothy 2 that Paul says, I do not permit, this is 1 Timothy 2, 11, I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. Now, commentators say, oh, well, that's a cultural thing. That was a deal in Ephesus because just the women in Ephesus weren't very smart, where Paul was writing. I think that's a slander against them. But if you look at why Paul says that, he doesn't ground it in a cultural narrative. He grounds it in creation. He says, no, the reason for this is because of the order in which men and women were made, that there was a purpose in that. all the way back in the beginning. And when Eve was deceived in the garden, what was happening was, is Satan was subverting Adam's headship. Adam was the head. Adam was the leader. Who does Satan tempt? Does he go to the head? No, he subverts the order of leadership. He goes to the woman. and deceives her. And that's Paul's point in 1 Timothy 2, is he's saying you don't subvert the natural order of what God intended. He's saying, therefore the men are to be the ones exercising authority, the elders, and the ones with mixed audiences teaching. Obviously women have gifts of teaching and exhortation as well. And Paul's desire in Titus 2 is for them to exercise those gifts with other women and children. And this issue is, you know, so in terms of what women are to do, in terms of leading in the church and those things, that's what they're to do. They're to lead other women, disciple other women. They're to lead the children to Christ. You know, you read 1 Timothy 5. This is the picture. What are the older widows to do? Well, Paul established an order of widows. And to do that, you had to be extremely virtuous, extremely knowledgeable, and those widows were to go around and help teach the younger women in the church. There's some things as a pastor I can't do. It's hard. I can't. go teach young women how to love their husbands well, how to parent their children well. I can't go into their home and show them how to do that, but a godly older woman can. When the congregation comes together as a real body of Christ, that's what the older women are doing. They begin to not just look to their own needs, but they turn around and say, I'm going to invest myself in the younger women. And so the question about single women, that's an important question. And what Paul did, what the apostles did, is he put them to work in the life of the church. They basically became mothers in the church. They became mothers and basically agents of good to serve people's needs. So they were used for incredible purposes. You know, the majority of the early church were females. And they served people, they served the disciples, they, you know, just look at the women in Jesus's ministry and you kind of get a picture for how women served in the early church. So I think that touches all those points on that question. Kenneth, again, staying with the theme of church life, what's the basis of how we select worship songs here at Capitol? Obviously, worship is so important, so important. One, for God, that we want to honor Him. It's for Him, first and foremost, that we give glory and praise to Him, that we honor Him. And so, we want to sing songs that most accurately reflect who He is, and most accurately speak to His character, His grace, His love, His mercy. So we want to sing great truth because your theology becomes what you sing. I don't know if you knew that. You learn best by singing. All the great heretics in history have taught people songs to basically catechize them. You know, Arius had a song. Arians taught that that Jesus wasn't God and Arius's song was There was before he was not something like that in other words there was a time when Jesus was not And he got people to start singing that song and so people begin singing that Jesus isn't God and so we need to be very careful about the songs that we're singing and And right now, and y'all have heard me speak about this from the pulpit, the primary producers of songs, worship songs, right now, are from Hillsong United, or Hillsong in Australia, from Bethel Music in California, and from Elevation Church here in North Carolina. All three of those institutions are just baked in the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel. And the prosperity gospel teaches. Now, when you think of prosperity gospel, you probably think of Kenneth Hagin. You probably think of Oral Roberts or Joel Osteen. And you think of money. that God wants you to be rich. Well, that's the most overt form of the prosperity gospel. But here's how it's more, and how we're more susceptible to it. And here's how it's peddled by these other three churches. I say churches, I think they're false churches. It's that God wants you to be successful. That Jesus is the means for you to have your own kingdom. That's how it's peddled. It's the lie, do you remember that Satan gave to Jesus and he showed him all the kingdoms of the world? And he said, I'm gonna offer you these things if you'll just bow down to me. That's the really insidious version of the prosperity gospel. Because it's what high school boys that are on the football team can get behind. It's that if I just come to Jesus, he's gonna make me an NFL football player. that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. You see it? It's the crown without a cross. And the prosperity gospel teaches essentially that you speak your own reality, that you are a little God, that just as God speaks and creates things with his words, that you can create things with your words. that if you simply speak a blessing, that it will happen, because you are a little God. I'm not making this up. This is what they believe when you peel back the curtains. And so, going back to songs, I don't want to sing songs that are gonna put people into the gateway of that theology. Because that theology damns. It's serious. And you say, that's a very serious thing to say. You know what? I've seen it with my own family. One of my cousins got roped into this. Went out to Bethel, the school of the supernatural. Spent two years out there. You know what? He's renounced Christ now. He's waving the rainbow flag. He has completely renounced the Lord. Four years ago, he was saying, I can speak my own blessing into existence. You see, when you're redirected from the truth of the gospel, what does Jesus say? He doesn't say, speak your own reality into existence. He says, take up your cross and follow me. Lose your life for my sake, and then you'll gain the kingdom. It's not Jesus as a means to your own end. It's Jesus as a means to the cross and to glory, to the kingdom of God, not your own kingdom. We're going to be talking about this in the next couple weeks, about what saving faith actually is. But time and time again, Jesus said, look, if you want to enter the kingdom, you have to die. Your old self, it's gone. That's why Paul says, Galatians 2.20, I've been crucified to Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, who loved me and gave himself for me. It's your old you is dead. The prosperity gospel says keep the old you, and all the things that the old you wants are going to be given to you by Jesus, and you get to choose what those things are by speaking them. You see how deadly that is? No repentance, no genuine faith. It's the broad way to destruction that's marked heaven. So, going back to the songs we sing. Wow, circling back. We just want to be very careful that we're singing songs that are sound in theology, but also that we can sing together. Some songs are sound in theology, but they're very hard to sing. And I work with Jake to pick the songs. So he gives me a list, I go through them. So I'm actually, if you're upset about what we're singing or wanna hear something more or wanna hear a song, don't go to Jake, come to me. Because I'm the one choosing the songs. That's the little secret. He's playing them and leading them because I can't sing. But I'm choosing the songs and generally speaking, When you look at the songs we choose, they go in this order. God, man, Christ, response. So the first song that you're going to hear is a song about the character of God. The second song that you're going to hear is about who we are and our need of redemption. The third song you're going to hear is about Christ. and what he's done. The fourth song is a response to that, a response in faith to him. And then obviously the doxology, a song of praise at the end. All right, we've just got a few minutes left. You have to answer these under 45 seconds, because we have a lot of questions to go through. Should a Christian attend a same-sex marriage? No, because a marriage ceremony is a marriage is a public institution, and that's why marriage ceremonies are public. That's why the pastor used to say, if anyone has a reason why these two shouldn't be married, speak now or forever hold your peace. Because it's a public institution. If you're at a same-sex wedding, you're giving license to that. You're giving approval to that. You can't do that as a Christian. It's directly disobedient to Christ. That's what marriage is, that's what a wedding ceremony is. Everything about a wedding ceremony is about the public covenant that is being made. That's why the bride and groom come down an aisle, walk between the families. A covenant is being cut. That's why vows are made. Whenever you have a covenant, you say vows. That's why rings are given. Rings are a sign of a covenant that has been made. The covenant that's pictured with a marriage is between who? Christ and the church, the husband and the bride, right? The marriage was designed from the beginning to picture the glorious reality of Christ and the church. It's not Christ and Christ. It's not the bride and the bride. You can't endorse that. Can Christians be cremated? They can, and many have been, but I don't think that they should for this reason, is the biblical pattern has always been burial, has always been burial. The idea is that, you know, Paul talks about the seed is planted. But when Christ comes back, we'll be resurrected and given new bodies. And so we bury people in hope of the future resurrection. The burial was always to be, you know, was Christ cremated? No, he was buried. So we're buried in hope of the resurrection that he had. And just practically speaking, Grace Anna and I, I'll just speak to this very shortly, but Grace Anna and I had a little girl that was miscarried very late, and we named her Rose. And normally these babies, I literally held her in my hands, she was about six inches long, And normally these babies are just cremated by the hospital. And we said, no, we're not going to do that. Because we believe that she will be in the resurrection. I believe that all children that die before the age that they can profess faith in Christ, have a special dispensation of grace from the Lord, and are saved. And so we chose to bury her, and that was an important thing that I told my children, is that, look, we're burying her. not in despair but in hope, in hope of the resurrection. So, look, if you cremated a parent or a sibling, or in your will you have it to be cremated, God's going to sort that out. I wouldn't feel condemnation and judgment about that. But I do think if you have the opportunity to bury somebody, that that's the more Christian example than cremation. What are your opinions on Halloween and trick-or-treating? I prefer to celebrate Reformation Day. October 31st was the day that Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door at Wittenberg Chapel. So I prefer Reformation Day. We don't get into the ghouls and the witches and all that stuff. You know, it was originally All Hallows Eve or All Saints Day. We we let our kids go trick-or-treating We don't think that that's sinful to do necessarily, you know We and you know this at the church this past year. We we've done this previous two years a fall festival Which actually fell on Reformation Day or Halloween where we had the candy up here And we we want kids to be up here having fun in the life of the church We don't want them to be out being scared somewhere, you know by some guy dressed up as a werewolf. We want them here and and hearing truth from people, being encouraged by people. We had a candy shack. They get way more candy than they can get out trick-or-treating. So, I mean, that's... Can I tell them what you wanted? Yeah. We were talking, you know, we had the Fall Festival fell on the 31st last year, and we were running ideas, and Jamie was sitting in our staff meeting, and Grant goes, we should have a board with kids and allow them to pretend they're nailing in the 95 theses. And Jamie was sitting there as her children started going, you know, I don't, I don't know if that's the best thing to do. You know, who's going to supervise it, you know? So we should just let her do it. Yeah. Yeah. I still love that idea. Yeah. I give him a nail gun. Yeah. All right, we're going to answer these really fast. Again, I apologize for those who have submitted questions, you didn't hear it. We'll just do part two. We'll just do this again. Pastor Grant, we often hear a lot of times with the news, social media, they list other mediums of news, of we live in a very political world. So often it's a very confusing time for us as Christians to know what candidate is the right candidate for Christians. Do you believe, and this is, I'm actually putting this together, do you believe it is a sin for Christians to vote for Democrats or any elected officials who support things that Christians should be standing against? You have 20 seconds. Just kidding. Yeah, I mean, this is an important question, and I think there's been so much confusion on this. The Democratic Party platform if you read it, and people say, oh, well, I vote for a candidate. I vote for so-and-so, and they're a nice person, and they're an upstanding member, but when you, and I think Tammy Fitzgerald explained this really well about a year ago. When you elect a candidate, they vote according to a caucus. They vote along party lines. It doesn't matter how nice they are or what you think about their character. They're gonna vote by and large according to their party. So, when you read the Democratic Party platform, it's pro-abortion. God was taken out of, and he mentioned, that's a good thing, I think, considering what's in the platform. But also, what's in the Democratic Party platform is the advancement of transgenderism in gay marriage, and the essentially the plan to revoke even a 501c3 status from organizations that oppose that. Also, we're seeing these laws where you can't even evangelize or proselytize or counsel somebody that is homosexual or transgender to repent and to turn from that lifestyle and give them help in order to do that. These laws are being passed. One was already passed in the city of Columbia, South Carolina. That is in the Democratic Party platform. So I don't think a Christian can vote for that in good conscience. and call themselves a believer. Because it's, in short, it is a sin, I think, to do that. Now, this isn't a tacit endorsement for the Republican Party either. There's numerous things, you know, that are wrong with a number of candidates, and, you know, we could go on and on about things there as well. But, you know, You can't, as of right now, the Republican Party doesn't have those things in its platform. It's not anti-God the way that the Democratic Party platform is. Your options are basically to vote Republican or not vote at all, or write in somebody. I think that's where you have to be as a Christian. The ERLC, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, just came out with an article this week and said it's okay to vote for candidates of either party. Yeah. Yeah. So this isn't just a hypothetical question. This is our denomination. This is the world we're living in, and young people are especially susceptible, for whatever reason they're taught that, the Democratic Party is more compassionate. And so it pulls on their heartstrings. But we have to think very carefully and clearly about these things and know where the parties actually stand. And we need to, again, speak the truth and tell people and inform people. And Tammy does such a great job of that. Y'all go check out her website, North Carolina Values Coalition, and she just does a tremendous job of laying out all the issues and telling about where people fall. So she's been a tremendous help to me in that regard. Grant, I'm going to end on this question, and we are just two minutes over our time, but I think it's very fitting for where we are. We had a number of people submit questions in regards to the war that is going on in Russia and Ukraine, and I'm going to begin to summarize a number of questions. Basically, with this war going on, there's been a lot of talk in regards to the book of Revelation, in regards to is this Gog and Magog and the end times. What are your thoughts on, not the end times itself, but in regards to this war and in the context of the book of Revelation? I'm summarizing kind of six questions. I have a number of friends in Ukraine. I've been to Ukraine twice to preach and to teach in the Vinnytsia Bible Seminary. Basically, after the Iron Curtain fell, the gospel exploded in Ukraine. and thousands, if not millions of people were converted. It was basically a revival in Ukraine, and churches were planted everywhere. So there's a number of Christians, believers in Ukraine. But that being said, there's also a number of Christians and believers in Russia. There's a lot of evangelical Christians in Russia. And as I look at this, I'm not first and foremost thinking about it in terms of prophecy. And I think there's a danger in reading your newspaper and your Bible at the same time and saying, this is that. You know, people have been doing that. World War I, they said, oh, this is the war to end all wars. And then it was like, oh, well, it wasn't. World War II, you know, these things, these, you know, Jesus said there will be wars and rumors of wars, right? This is going to keep happening again and again and again and again and again until he comes back. So to understand what war is, Martin Lloyd-Jones, who preached in London when it was being bombed by Germans in the 40s, he always told his people, he said, war is a judgment for sin. That's what it is at its heart. It's a judgment for sin. We have sinned against God. And war is a terrible thing. It's an evil thing. And at the end of the day, it's God's judgment. Now, I'm not saying that that's necessarily God's judgment on Ukraine or Russia or even us. I mean, the reality is we deserve judgment. I mean, America isn't the virtuous nation here. I mean, look at the abortions that we're committing. Look at the laws and statutes that we're putting in place. We're not deserving of blessing, we're deserving of judgment. We need to pray for those that are in Ukraine. My goodness, so many faithful brothers and sisters in Christ, so many faithful pastors. Pray for them. Be very careful about what you trust in the media. Be very careful. There is a lot of corruption at the highest levels with I think our administration in Ukraine, right? We know that. That's not, I think that's not news to anybody here. There's corruption. When I was in Ukraine, what they always told me is that the government's corrupt. All the pastors I talked to, all the Ukrainians that were, that were in the churches, they said, the Ukrainian government is very corrupt. So, I know Zelensky's been made out to be a hero. I know he's been courageous in this stand, but there's a lot of things that we don't understand and the media's not telling us about what's going on. This is... all judgment from God, and we just need to pray that God will protect His saints and the righteous ones that are there, and they'll be delivered. Thank you. Well, this concludes our Q&A. We didn't get through all the questions. I got through like 10 of them. But we will do this again. So I'll say these questions, and we will continue to work through them. But let's give Grant a round of applause here. Well, we thought maybe we'd have time to... Let me pray for us. Yeah, let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, we do pray for our Ukrainian brothers and sisters right now that are, some of them who have been separated from one another, husbands from wives and just the terrible difficulty and suffering that they're enduring. And I just pray, Lord, for comfort for them and your supernatural peace to rush over them. We pray, Lord, for their protection, especially the women and children that are fleeing the country. I pray specifically tonight, Lord, for my friend Vova Pachovsky and his wife, Tanya, and their children. He would protect them. Pray for other pastors there and other leaders that have chosen to stay with their congregations. We pray, Lord, that we would live righteous lives, that we would be holy, because you've called us to be holy, and that all the truth that we've talked about tonight wouldn't just be head knowledge, but would be truth that we would apply. that it would be truth that we put into action, that we put into shoe leather. We love you. We trust you. We thank you. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening. For more sermons, information, and events, check out our website at CapitalCommunityChurch.com.