It's going to be an onslaught of questions for sure. But here we go. All right, let's pray. Father, thank you so much for today, for bringing us here, Lord, for bringing your people to worship you, Lord. It is our great joy and honor every Sunday to bring ourselves with our families, Lord, to exalt your name and to raise up Jesus Christ, our Savior. Father, as we do this, Lord, let it not be an exercise in intellectualism, Lord, but let it be you caring for your people. Father, help us to be humble as these questions are answered, and all of us to receive them, Lord, with humility. Thank you, Father, for all of this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, I have a little statement for us, just for the questions, just so we're all on the same page. There were questions that were submitted that were too big to address in this setting, and those questions included, The Trinity, free will, the free will of man, Satan's role and power, abortion, LGBTQ, grace and legalism, heaven and eternity. And we've done several series on all of these topics. And so we would point you to the sermon audio recordings. Those series are the doctrine of salvation, the battle for the mind, fighting the culture wars, and the attributes of God. So go ahead and take a look at those if you have questions about those. And we would also encourage you to schedule time to meet with the pastors about any of those topics for some one-on-one discipleship. And the questions we will be addressing today, they're pastoral and they deal with living the Christian life on a day-to-day basis. And so we will approach these questions in two ways. We have big questions and then we have rapid response questions, which will be much quicker. And then we have follow-ups as well. And so this will be strictly from the questions that were submitted earlier. We won't be taking questions from the audience, but that may happen at some point in the future, just not today. Okay, first question. Oh, please. And also the point of this is for you to know our hearts. We want to shepherd and care for you. That's the fun of having a Q&A like this. It is for us to care for you and to get to know little details about ministry and our care for you that we don't ever get to say, right? Yeah, right. Okay, very good. Also, can we have all the mics on so that there's no delays? Yeah, are you guys? Am I on? Did you push? Okay, you can hear me? Okay, great. Good. Yeah, a little volume maybe, okay. Yeah, if you could turn it up, Ethan, just so that we don't lose time with the mic delays. All the stuff, yeah. Okay, first question, this is for Pastor Keller. How do your individual strengths and weaknesses combine to form a pastoral team, and how are these displayed in the preaching, counseling, and administrative duties of the church? Yeah, this was a question that we thought would be really helpful. It's a great question because the answer and discussion helps the church understand what we would call our philosophy of ministry, what the practice of ministry is like, and especially to understand what God is doing within the leadership that maybe you don't see on a Sunday morning that happens week after week as we're together. The question of strengths and weaknesses, I find really insulting that we would have any weaknesses at all. So we'll just start there. No, just kidding. We, of course, do have strengths and weaknesses like any team. None of us are strong in all areas, of course. There are things that Akash is strong in, I'm as strong as Todd is, but things we're also less strong, right? I don't know that... the word weak, how we define that. But we also, as you know, share the same position and title intentionally. So the authority, the position, the title, those are all the same and equal because we see the three of us and in 2026, the four of us as a team that God has put together here and now to serve his people in the way that he sees fit currently. And so there are things that we all do, obviously. We share preaching and teaching, whether that's like, you know, a midweek service or a Sunday school or something like that. And when you see the preaching, you'll notice personalities, you'll see the man come through in that, something that we are all doing as pastors called to preach the word. But you're going to see specialties, you're going to see emphasis of things on how we're trained, or even, you know, just who we are, how our brains work. So you think about like Todd, for example, has been so, so strong in Job and Jeremiah and Proverbs in these areas. And Akash has been for years now, just verse by verse, exposition, book by book, sometimes much longer than others, right? And then a lot of my emphasis over the years has been more on like theological stuff. And so you see just the strengths in in the preaching, how that comes out. Now, counseling, unless you're meeting with us or doing any kind of counseling, you wouldn't see that. And I think the way to say it is that the three of us do counseling regularly. In fact, there might be days where we're all three meeting with people or couples or whatever at the office during the same day. It's very frequent. This church is serious about the counseling ministry. But there's also areas of life where maybe Akash has some specific specialty understanding of an issue. He's done counseling in this area before, something comes up, and I might feel like, you know what, Akash is better suited to handle this. So we might move a situation to the one that has more more experience, especially some of the stuff that Todd's been through over the last several years. It's so helpful, that experience. So we see some of that come out. And then within the day-to-day kind of stuff administratively, Todd is so strong at that stuff and so good at it. Now, Akash and I, we can do those things. If Todd wasn't here, those things would get done. but God has uniquely gifted Todd to do these administrative things so well. He manages it all so well. Usually he's, I ask questions like, hey, what about this? And he's like, oh yeah, I've already got that scheduled. He's so far ahead in those things. And so is that a strength weakness or is it just how God has kind of driven us and given us interest where we're gonna be slower and like, oh man, we gotta figure out how to get that you know, maintenance thing done or to arrange the alarm system repair, whatever, if that makes sense. And so we see that stuff kind of come out from time to time. And what it does is God has, by bringing the three of us together uniquely with different backgrounds and different different training experience, is he has formed a more complete leadership team to do the work that he has for Community Bible Church. And it's very specific that it's God's people, and we are simply God's servants, so he's putting it together perfectly for his people, all for the glory of Christ, I guess is about as short as I can answer that. So as the pastoral team, how do you guys handle disagreements? Yeah, I love that question, actually. Do you want him to answer? Or you want me to answer? You were already down the road, like, let's keep going. So with disagreements, I actually spent a lot of time trying to remember a time where we had a disagreement. And I don't say that to be like, you know, we're great. But because of how we handle things, disagreements, don't really arise. We're seeking the Lord, we're talking, we're talking a lot, we're constantly wrestling through things together. We're not coming at things with like these, you know, this is my idea, and this is Todd's idea, and this is Akash's idea, and they're like butting heads. We're trying to come to everything with what does the Lord have for this church and for us, and how do we lead and serve in that way. And So it really doesn't end up in disagreements. And I think the way that we avoid disagreements is through lots of talking, lots of prayer, lots of even research, coming back, talking more, and then submitting ourselves to the word in those situations. Yeah, very good, yeah, okay. So the pastor definition is to exercise spiritual care over. So who pastors our pastors? Akash, you wanna answer that? These guys passed through me just the way Todd and I would Pastor Keller, and you understand that part. And I think that's something that to really emphasize what Keller just said, there's something so beautiful about the ministry that God has blessed us with. Let me also just say this in addition to what Keller said when we're trying to talk about ministry and who does what, where strengths are, where weaknesses are. Sometimes we want to be very careful and I actually restrain myself in thinking about where strengths and weaknesses are because what can happen is we begin to think about the church as a as a company, as a business, and your people have got different roles within the company, and you'll find that in churches. You'll find churches where there will be a pastor of this and a pastor of that, and I met a pastor from a church who was a pastor of audio video, just so you know, that really existed. Didn't make any sense. Anyways, my point is simply this, is that there is ministry that God has called us to do. We are called to pastor God's people, you will never find in the Bible a delineation of anybody's work, of what they're called to do. In fact, you'll find Paul writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 1 through 5, and he tells Timothy, preach the word. So right there is the word to Caruso to proclaim the message. He used the word to teach, which is a didactic form of actually information that you'll see during Sunday school. He live and tell Timothy to do the work of an evangelist, which is now work of actually spreading and expanding the kingdom. And all this is going on through one person. And who has equipped that one person? Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 3 that God has made us sufficient for these things. God has actually qualified us for these things. So listen very carefully, your pastors have been qualified by God for the work and he has given three of us the strength to do the work and that's incredible. To me, I see these men, I do not know anybody as teachable as Keller. I have never told him anything twice. Before I finish the sentence, he's on it, and it's done. It's incredible. I've never met a servant like Todd. The guy is relentless in his work of serving you and loving you. And for me, I mean, how can there be a disagreement when you've got such kindness and such mercy that God has shown this church by giving us men like this. I mean it's an absolute joy. And so when you're saying who pastors, at least me, these brothers do. I mean over and over and over again. Over the years, I don't know how many times we've been in each other's offices, but we're talking through issues. Help me think through times of being in the word in tears or whatever it is. God has been so gracious. I love it, and I'm looking forward to you, Christian, being there, too. Let me add on one. So you guys have hit all over my notes, but I want to add two things that I have in my notes. The first one is that the office or the role that we're in is connected to being a third level Gaui slave. And slaves by nature don't have the option of agendas and they don't have the option of this is what I will do and this is what I will not do. Slaves are slaves. and as a body of Christ, we're all to be slaves to one another. And that has to start in leadership. And if it doesn't exist in leadership, it's not gonna exist in the congregation. And one of the beautiful things about CBC is there is a slave mentality of how do I serve? How do I love? How do I pour myself out for these people? And it is something that is reflective because that's how God established it. And the other thing I would add is that that definition of pastor to exercise spiritual care over, there is a role that you serve as our pastors in a small P, you know, not a authoritative position, but in Hebrews chapter 13, God talks about, you know, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch of your souls as to those who give an account. And then he goes on to say, let them do this with joy. and not with groaning. So when I was not in this position, that verse really stuck in my head, is how do I care for my pastor? And the very practical way for me was to be a joy. And one of the ways that we can be a joy is being those two little words that are just so fun to digest, submit, and obey, which don't come easily in our wiring, but they really do produce a joy in the ministry of people that just push themselves into the ministry and the desire to be slaves. And so those are the two kind of tag-ons I would add to that. Yeah, very good. Todd, maybe you can answer this one. Do you guys meet with other pastors in this area? We have connections with other pastors in the area that we interact with, but on a level of day-to-day church activity, things that are going on, we might reach out if we know a particular resource, someone that maybe has gone in a vein of something that we're going into just to get insight and direction. But mostly, all of our activity, we have enough to do within this context, and a lot of times there's not the slot. It sounds, you know, it would be okay, but it's not something we really have a time to carve out in a lot of those areas. Yeah, two things that I can throw onto that. Last year we went to the FIRE Conference that a lot of you know in October, which is basically a conference for pastors and church leadership in the Southwest. doctrinally, they're very aligned with us. And that was cool because we hadn't done something like that that was sort of intimate, you know, smaller group where we could sit and get to know other guys, build some networking of like-minded pastors. That's one thing that we've implemented. We're probably going to go again this year. And then during COVID, when things were really confusing and complicated during COVID, we had actually, Akash and I were on a Zoom call every week with, I think it was about six other pastors around the country, talking about, okay, what's happening? What are you doing? How are you doing this? And one international. Yeah, that's right. And that was also beneficial. So it's not that we don't ever, but it is rare. Okay, very good. First rapid response question. This should be fun. Okay. How do you balance personal family time with ministry? Really, this is a gospel-centered question. What I mean by that is the gospel addresses ministry, and we don't want to be separating ministry from family, because my family is part of the ministry. And Paul makes it very clear in 1 Timothy 3, verses 4 and 5, talking about a man who will care for his family. If he cannot manage his household, how is he going to care for the people of God? So there has to be a priority. For me, the minute I was in ministry, I changed my schedule. I was taught to have my days off on Mondays, and I hated that because then the days Later on at the end of the week like a Friday or a Saturday. I was still working I didn't want to do that. I want to make sure that I'm with my family So I change my days where I keep going and the days I'm done with my message I'm done with all my work by Thursday at noon so that I can have a time with my family to care for them to To really enjoy them. I don't want my family to despise the ministry. That's That's something vital sometimes we hear about ministry metrics that you have to sacrifice your family for the sake of a church and ministry and that is wrong. It is completely wrong. A pulpit is never a good substitute for a rich and joyful marriage, family, life. I mean it is terrible when someone substitutes ministry for family. So anyways, let me just say it this way, is that there are priorities, and the priorities is the Lord Jesus Christ, your family, then after that will come your ministry, and then your work, your hobbies, et cetera. But your family has to be part of the entire work of the ministry. And let me also say this, sometimes people will bring in their families as part of the ministry to work for free. It's almost like free labor for the church. Don't do that. Don't ever, ever do that. Your ministry, your family is simply your family. Love them, care for them, pray for them, enjoy them, but they're not free labor for the church. Your wife is not another pastor Do the things that need to be done at the church. No, God has called you to shepherd God's people. So that's how I view that. There's a balance there. Family has to come first. And that schedule, we have adopted that schedule and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. There's something wonderful about Monday morning, hitting the ground running, working hard. but then being done and having, so we take Friday, Saturday, all three of us, Friday, Saturday as our family days, and one thing that you'll find, hopefully, with the three of us regularly is we will say no. So don't ever feel like, oh, I can't bother them, because we'll tell you no to protect our family all the time. So ask, but if there's a no, it's a no, yeah. And emergencies, I mean, that's one thing, but otherwise, most of the time, everything can wait till Monday. All right, very good. Pastor Todd, this next one is for you. How do you keep up with everyone in the congregation? Do you always keep each other in the loop with things going on in the lives of members of the body? Well, if I converted this to a rapid response, it would be we don't and no. If you think about the ministry, and just look at this from the context of Sundays. So there's 52 in the course of a year. And a lot of times in Sundays, it's not about so much who's here, it's about who's missing. And then you have to remember, oh, have they been missing for one Sunday? Or two Sundays? Or four Sundays? And in that, there's some difficulty there in just keeping all the faces. connected, and then making those lines and saying, all right, is something going on? Should I, we gotta reach out, and then we'll talk within, the three of us will talk and say, hey, have you heard from so and so? Anything going on? And one of us may know, hey, this is going on, this is what's happening. And for me, this kinda connects down to a weakness in ministry, which is just the logistics of communication. And it's sometimes not necessarily a neglect, it's just, how many things in the day and then remembering what you need to remember at the time you need to remember it. and there's a fair challenge in that. So what we'll do in the course of a week is that we always have, it's not always the same day, but we'll have just a day during the week that we sit down, talk through, catch up on the big things, and then pray for those things, praying for the individuals that we've been discussing, and then trying to get everyone in the loop. But it's a challenge in ministry for sure. So there you go. Very good. So just to follow up for Keller, we'll go with Keller. How can we as members keep up with others and pursue relationships when there are so many people in such a busy body? Yeah, that's a really important question because I think sometimes we get this feeling of guilt of, I've got to know everybody, I've got to meet with everybody, I've got to have lunch with everybody, I've got to have a meaningful relationship with everybody, and I can tell you it's impossible. You'll lose your mind literally trying to keep up. So God has done some amazing things within the congregation to build friendships and groups and home studies and different things where there can be these healthy pods of relationships that grow. And you're not gonna know. There's times when we're talking to somebody and we say, hey, have you talked to so-and-so? And they're like, I don't even know who that is, never met him. They're like, that's okay, that's okay. There's enough people that come to this church that if you're trying to have meaningful relationships, how many people can you have meaningful relationships with? I mean, we do it full time, and still, we're struggling to keep up with a church of like, you know, say 250 people. So as an individual who's working and family stuff, it is very difficult. So I would say, go easy on yourself, but then be intentional about building relationships with somebody. make sure you're having meaningful relationships, there's time when you're together that you have them in your home, you're in their home, you're doing things together, expand that group slowly over time and over several years. And I would also say, and this may seem super obvious, but come to church. You know, come to church, be at Sunday school, have the time between services to connect with people, be at the sermons, be at the midweek stuff, be at the college group and the home fellowship, like do things with the church and that group that you grow in will be, it'll be a blessing. Very good, yeah. I have to tag on one thing. Please. Don't be stupid. don't develop relationships inappropriately with people within the church. So I'm talking single men developing deep relationships with a single woman. There are areas where you need to use discretion and apply some common sense reality to what is going on. But in the end, at the same time, I would tag on to what Keller said, you are never ever gonna develop deep, meaningful relationships in isolation. And if you're what I call a 10-31er, where you hit the door at 10-31, and at 12-04, you're like, is he ever gonna finish? And then you're gone. you'll never develop those relationships. You may check off on your list, hey, I went to church this week, great, but you didn't ever get in and develop those deeper relationships that really foster, and the person that you're depriving the most is yourself, because you're actually stunting your spiritual growth by not getting in and doing the ministry work and getting into the lives of people that God has made you a part of. Yeah, very good. It's a team. We're a team. Okay, all right. Rapid response. Keller, can you handle it? I'm super fast. His rapid response was like four minutes. All right, here we go. Rapid response. What are some of the most encouraging things you have seen in ministry at CBC? Yeah, so I didn't know this coming in, but the most encouraging thing that I have experienced along with my wife is the weddings, the marriages, the pre-marriage counseling. There is nothing like that. It's a really special time. So I would say that by far has been the greatest blessing is being involved in these marriages over the years. But I would say on a broader level, when we see God's people respond to the word and to the glory of Christ, and they begin to chase after Christ, when there's that change that happens, whether it's repentance or whatever, that's just the sweet spot of ministry, it's so beautiful. Very good, yeah. Okay, this question, I've been wanting to hear the answer to. Akash, here's a question for you. What do you do when you examine yourself and are unworthy to take communion? Do you refrain from it? If you don't, is this also disobedience? Okay, 1 Corinthians 11, 28. Listen to these words very carefully. Let a person examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Over here, this examining, I know it's funny, we think about maybe a person is doing a test and seeing if they are sinful. If that's true, no one can take the Lord's Supper. and that means even your pastors, right? Who is without sin? Who can pass the test? None of us. So this examining cannot mean what we think it means. Paul actually makes it very clear, and I'll tell you in a second. This is not a rapid response, right? Okay. No, yeah, no. So far, those don't apply to you anyway. Yeah. So the examining over here, if I could use an illustration, we're talking about something where we come with a perspective of who God is, that he is our savior, the one who's redeemed us, the one who's justified us, the one who's sanctified us. There's a joy in coming as sinners that are forgiven. There is a joy in that. We don't come here flippantly. So there are certain places. So I think about a cemetery or recently at the Normandy Cemetery, American Cemetery in Normandy. There was such a solemn attitude of each person. No one over there was laughing, joking, chewing gum, walking all over the grass. No. It was a place where people were actually silent. Some people with tears in their eyes. It was the funniest thing to see that there is a certain response of people at a certain place. Using that illustration, there should be a response of Christians at the Lord's Supper where we come as fallen, weak, sinful people. that have been justified, redeemed, and there should be joy in that. Yet at the same time, such an overwhelming response of the Lord of God. Use me, Lord. Lord, have mercy upon me in my life. Lord, let my life be this living sacrifice. That is the right attitude. In fact, Paul over here, he said, listen now, 1 Corinthians 11, 27. Whoever eats and drinks in an unworthy manner is guilty. Notice Paul doesn't talk about unworthy people. He's talking about an unworthy manner. And that's what I'm referring to. The manner is unworthy when we come here without even understanding what the gospel has done for us through Jesus Christ. That's the unworthy manner. The worthy manner is recognizing what God has done. You know what that means? That means if we come to the Lord's Supper, as self-confident people who do not trust or need Christ, that is an unworthy manner. That person should not take the Lord's Supper. If a person comes seeing their sin, comes broken, comes understanding, Lord, I am not worthy to take this, that person is welcomed to the table and has come with a worthy manner. Does that make sense? It is to come recognizing that we are in desperate need of God's kindness God's grace, and as the word of God is preached, as we take the Lord's Supper together, really, it is God having mercy upon us to remind us of the gospel again. So do not think of unworthy as passing a test. Unworthy is someone who recognizes their sin and the Savior, okay? That's how we're gonna be thinking. We're gonna be thinking of not an unworthy person, but we're thinking about an unworthy manner. That person should not take it if he comes in an unworthy manner. Okay, very good, simple, all right. All right, rapid response, Pastor Todd. All right. Why is Revelation 1 referenced in the tithing section of the worship guide? Okay, so in Revelation 1, Jesus is coming to John, and in Revelation 1, verse 12, says, I turned to see who was speaking to me, and on turning, I saw seven golden lampstands. And then later on in verse 20, he talks again about these seven golden lampstands. are the seven stars or the angels of the seven churches. So in the tithing section, I'm picking up on the language that John used that each individual church is a lampstand to the Lord. And the Lord will come and he will deal with each one of his lampstands. And as Revelation opens, we see that happens in Ephesus and Thyatira and Laodicea and it just marches through those seven churches. So I'm grabbing that language to put the weight and the understanding that as a church body, we need to have that comprehension, even down to the finest details of our finances. What are we doing with our finances? Are they transparent? Are they open? If the Lord comes and examines the finances of this lamp stand, Will he say, well done, or will he say, we've got to have a conversation? And that's why I'm picking up on that language in that section of the tithing that shows up in the worship guide every week. There's my rapid response. Yeah, that was rapid. Okay, Pastor Keller, question number four. Actually, we're making pretty good time. Yeah, we're doing okay. I'll keep this in range. Yeah, very good, okay. All right, how can we develop a habit of prayer and dependence on the Lord instead of worrying? So this is a topic that's really close to my heart. I feel like worry, or what we call anxiety, is an epidemic in the church. It's something we're dealing with constantly. And so I think there's a couple things to think about. When we're worried, it's usually because we're interpreting the events of our life in the wrong way, or we're looking forward to something and we're just worried, we're scared, we're having anxiety. So worry comes from when we're trying to do things in our own strength, Usually it's when we're not connected with the Lord as we should be. Worry tends to be a lack of faith and a lack of trust, right? And we're not talking about anxiety like you're walking through the alley, somebody pulls a knife and is gonna mug you and you freak out and like that kind of fear. That's right and good. We're talking about that unreasonable thing. Oh, I'm worried about my test score. I'm worried about the medical results. I'm worried about what people at work think about me. I'm worried about this or that, that sort of, So, if we think about it as self-sufficiency, a lack of faith, a lack of trust, then what I find so important is this verse from, there are these couple verses from Proverbs 3, 5 through 8. Usually what's quoted is 5, Proverbs 3, 5, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. which is true, and that's so helpful. But we got to keep reading because he writes, in all your ways, acknowledge Him. So now you're thinking of God and acknowledging God in everything that you're doing, in all your ways. And it says, He will make straight your path. So if you're acknowledging the Lord, He's going to show you the path. You don't have to worry. And he says, be not wise in your own eyes, that's being self-sufficient, fear the Lord, reverence and fear, turn away from evil, avoid the sin. And then this is the part that's so encouraging, verse eight. It'll be a healing to your flesh and a refreshment to your bones. And I would ask all of you, do you want some healing of your flesh and refreshment of your bones? And we always say, yes, absolutely. I want that refreshing peace. And I would say, Trust the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all your ways and He will make straight your paths. He will refresh you as you acknowledge Him and give it to Him. So here's, there's other verses. If you're writing notes, Philippians 4, 4 through 8, hugely important. 1 Peter 5, verses 6 and 7, hugely important. Luke 12, verses 22 to 34. These passages show us how to trust the Lord when we're anxious. The Bible is very serious about anxiety. The very first time you see anxiety and worry in the Bible is as soon as Adam and Eve sin, they're immediately anxious. They start to hide, they cover themselves up. The anxiety enters at the very beginning. And so here's my advice. First, figure out what are you worrying about. Second, take what you're worrying to the Lord and pray to the Lord about that thing. Give it to the Lord, be specific and talk about what it is. Then leave it with the Lord. Don't say, okay, Lord, I just told you, now I'm gonna go worry about it. No, Lord, you take this, you have it, you carry it for me. And then when we say amen, we change our thinking about that thing. We no longer hyperfixate on that thing, but we start to think about God, think about the promises of God, think about the truth and heavenly things. And as we do that, this process of, here's what I'm worried about, name it, take it to the Lord, pray about it, give it to the Lord, walk away from it, and then you know what? I start to feel that way again. And you do it again. I'm worried about this thing. Name it. Take it to the Lord. Lord, I'm still worried about this. Lord, please take this from me. And I know you can do it. You can handle it. And I'm gonna leave it with you, Lord. And you go away and you think, oh, God is so good. He's got me. And then 10 minutes later, you start to worry. And so you do it again. What am I worried about? Name it. Take it to the Lord once again. And you repeat that 50, 60 times a day if you have to. And that is what we've gotta do. It's all about interacting with the Lord on this stuff. Yeah, very good. So, Pastor Akash, can you share a time in your own life where prayer, independence, silenced worry? Yeah, so think about it this way, that God's sovereignty is what loosens the grip of worry on your life. And what Kel is talking about praying, I mean, we're talking about an understanding of God, Jesus, when we were studying in Mark, we find him in the garden, and there's in the garden, and he is under such agonizing turmoil that he is actually on the point of breaking, but he prays. And I think that's the area that Keller was just talking about. When we pray, we trust the Lord, and the Lord's response was, not my will, but yours be done. There's this trusting in the Lord that God will take care of it. So, yes, in my life, I know early on in the ministry, there were situations that were absolutely heartbreaking, where things took place that were, I mean, really, really full of turmoil. I couldn't eat, you don't have an appetite, you just continually talk to the Lord. Now, I am not of the natural personality of a person who is depressed or down, and so those would last few hours. Go to the Lord, and there was refreshment, where I was absolutely fine, and once again, you're dealing with it, and then again, yes, I would be very, very low, but, take it to the Lord, and once again, God dealt with these things, and He did. Eventually, He dealt with the situation, and, you know, Looking back, you can see God working in such a wonderful way. It was unexpected, the response and the way God, I mean, did deal with the whole situation, but it was unexpected. The situation was as bad as could be, and God completely carried myself, and this church, and our families, all of it through it just wonderfully. I mean, Yeah, in fact, every time a pastor comes and visits, every time we have a men's retreat, that's one of my questions. I usually sit with the person and I'll tell them, hey, tell me about one of the toughest times in your life and how'd you deal with it? And every one of these stories are heartbreaking, but what's beautiful is that the Lord works through it all. And ministry, it's not hard work, it's heart work. We're constantly either joyful or we're weeping. There's no in between. That's just the way it is. I mean, every Sunday, we are bringing basically a thesis, a doctoral thesis. We have worked, we have prayed, we have studied, we are pouring our heart into it, we preach our heart out as best as, whatever we have, we have nothing left. We're not reserving any energy for anything else. And that's how it is, year after year after year after year. And so you can imagine, the highs are high, and the lows are low, but God carries us through that. Yeah, it reminds me of that song, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, where it says, oh what peace we often forfeit, take it to the Lord in prayer. Yeah, that's great. Okay, rapid response, Pastor Akash, here we go. Rapid. All right, you're on the clock. Rapid. Rapid. One sentence. What is your continual prayer for CBC? Here's, I think here's the biggest one, and that is that we would be whole Bible Christians. I'm always praying for that. That we, I mean, To know the New Testament, you have to know the Old Testament. And I feel just sorrow. I think ever since my ministry began is the lack of comprehension and actually understanding the New Testament because there's a lack of understanding the Old Testament. And that feeds into everything in the Christian life. It feeds into your understanding of church membership, feeds into your understanding of baptism, it feeds into your understanding of how God has used the covenants and to show Christ being the fulfillment. It feeds into our obedience, our understanding of salvation. I mean, if one doesn't understand the Old Testament, you don't understand the New Testament. And so my prayer has always been, Lord, open our eyes. for our particular demographic and our church where we are, that we might know your Bible from beginning to end. I mean, the Apostle Paul is so clear when he's talking, he's always referring to the Old Testament. Jesus in Matthew 24 is always talking about the Old Testament and how it points to him. And so that has always been my first prayer is that we would know our entire Bible, not just the new, but the old. Well, Very good, yeah, amen to that. All right, Pastor Todd, a question for you. Will God allow one of his chosen to remain in a church or faith that is cult-like, or will a true child of God always be led out of such places? I guess you could also say, is it possible for a true child of God to die in one of those churches? All right, so let me first reframe that a little bit. I wanna put that in the context as God restrained when one of his children is under bad teaching. And I think if we look at the question in that setting, we can just go back in the landscapes of our own Christian life and say, no. You know, God works in all veins. He's not restrained by man's inability to come and bring the word cleanly. And I think even in, so in my own life, I think about my mom. We grew up in Church of Christ, which I know all this stuff in hindsight, don't know it in the middle of it. Church of Christ is very Arminian, very much gain and lose your salvation through the course of a day as many as your flesh will allow it. And, you know, they have very legalistic, no pianos, no kitchen. There's a lot of notey no-nos that they're dealing with. And was my mom a believer? Absolutely. She had a love for Christ that was manifested in her life year after year after year after year after year. And so early on, I was on, you know, my self-appointed quest to educate mom, so you can imagine how well that went. And then I realized that what I need to do in her life is infuse Christ where she's not getting Christ. Because this ultimately comes down to how big is your God and how deep is your understanding and your love for Christ? And then Paul writes about that in Ephesians chapter three. I mean, that's his prayer. that with all of our strength may we comprehend the love of Christ. So I would just have conversations with her that were directed at who Christ is, what he has done, and then pull these scriptures in that really highlight those things. And in those settings, the word did the work. And over that time, she got to that point where she had kind of a reframing of her understanding of who Christ was, but it deepened her relationship in that way. Now, she died in the church that my dad and her were part of for years in faithful ministry. And there's some pretty crazy things that they choose to teach and not teach in that church, having got to know them a little bit. But in all of that, Was God ineffective? And the answer is no. He worked through all those things, and praise God that salvation is his work, not ours, because we would sit down with a punch list of, okay, here's the things that you have to hit the marker on, and when that doesn't happen, we're like, oh, well. You're not saved. Well, that isn't our work. Our work is to be in love with Christ. And in my life, that's how that kind of manifested itself, is just having those special times where we could open the scriptures and say, look at what Jesus said about our salvation, and who's the author of it. And, you know, Hebrews chapter 12. which now I'm gonna get into your notes, but he's the author and the perfecter of it. We'll hear that later. So there you go. I think you answered also the follow-up question too, and maybe touch on briefly, because I think that that's including a faith that actually teaches for the most part from the Bible. What if it was like, the Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons, would God bring someone who got saved in those churches out of those churches? That's a good question. And again, that goes back to who's responsible and who is the primary point on authoring salvation. And in those instances, I guess I would say it this way, if there's somebody in those settings, say Jehovah's Witness, Mormonism, Catholicism, and they come to that realization is that this is what scripture says and this is what I'm hearing and these two things are strikingly different. And they then say, help me understand this. I'd say, absolutely. Let's invest ourselves into the scriptures and let's start unpacking this. And generally where that leads for someone that is open and desires to know the fullness of the truth is they come to that point where they're, I can't stay here. Yeah, exactly. And that's where that comes from. And it's absolutely rooted in them reading their Bible, because they're getting false teaching, so they're not gonna be saved through false teaching. But if they're reading their Bible, they're seeing and hearing from God. And yes, God could save somebody through the scriptures, whether they're in a Mormon church or in some tribe in Africa, right? Perfect, yeah, exactly, that's right. Okay, all right, rapid response question. Pastor Keller. Okay, I'm ready. What advice would you give to someone wanting to deepen their understanding of Scripture? Well, first I would hug them for wanting to understand scripture. I love that. Okay, so here's the thing. We've got to read, there's nothing more important than reading the Bible, read lots and lots of reading, reading on purpose with a plan. We can talk about reading plans afterwards if you'd like, but you have to read a lot on purpose with a plan. But here's three things that I would give you is number one, to read conversationally, Meaning that you are talking with God, you're hearing from God, you're talking to God, you're reading it as a conversation. It's not just a textbook. Secondly, to read it as a story, because it is a story. That's why your chronological reading plan is so good. Seeing Genesis, Revelation, the story of Jesus Christ, you must. And then third, this people may argue with me, but I say read a paper Bible, Read it in the same place at the same time so that you build habits. You want to have the tactile smell and touch of the page at the same time, same habits every day, and build that habit. And I'll tell you what, if you do these three things, you will just, your mind will explode with joy from the scriptures. Love it. And just so everyone knows, they do make chronological Bibles now. They do. Like ESV has a chronological Bible. However, same Bible, same place. That's true, yes. You're already breaking the rules. Yes, yes, yes. But they do have a chronological Bible, yeah. I do know how you feel about that. Okay, all right, another big question. This one's familiar, I think, because I submitted it. How'd that get through? Okay, here's a good question for us to think about. All right, Akash, help us with this. God talks about caring for the helpless and the poor. Jesus met the physical needs of many to illustrate spiritual truths, just like we saw in Mark. How should the church think about community involvement like caring for the poor and those other things? Good question, Christian. Okay, see that's why I want us to be whole Bible readers because there's a reason why Jesus does what Jesus does. Jesus is not about social reform. Jesus is not at the end of the day about any sort of social wellbeing or care for people. Here's what Jesus came to do. He came to seek and save the lost. He came to give his life as a ransom for many. He came to save sinners, that was the point. And so one of the marks, one of the identifying, authenticating marks of the Savior is all those things that were promised by the prophets about what the Messiah would look like. Isaiah 61, he will what? Free those who are in prison. He will cause the lame to walk. He'll cause the blind to see. He will open captives that, you know, or those that have been in captivity. Luke chapter 4, Jesus says, here I am. In Isaiah chapter 35, listen to these words. I mean, this is all language. of someone coming in the future who's going to actually do these things. That's the guy. That's the Messiah. Guess what? Jesus comes and he begins to do this. He actually authenticates his ministry, who he is as the savior by doing these things. Now, What we wind up doing, unfortunately, is watching Jesus and saying, well, these are the things he's doing, and the church sometimes, because we do not know how to measure spiritual growth and maturity, rather than thinking about what the gospel has done, how we can grow in maturity in Christ, the church can start moving towards being a social, gospel church where we begin to do things for the community like feeding or like caring for schools or for beautifying parks and we start doing things that don't line up and so my caution is always err on the side of giving people Christ. We don't want people to go to hell with a full stomach. We want them to know Christ, even if they're hungry. The priority is for them to know Jesus Christ and be crucified. So as a church, our good works follow because of who we are in Christ. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 9 and 10, that God has created us for good works that we might walk in them. So there are good works we do, but it's an outflow of what Christ has done for us. And what's funny is actually in the New Testament, a lot of the good works that we read about, they're actually talking about the church within the church community. Even Paul says in Galatians, yeah, do good, especially to the household of God. In fact, there's a text, James 1.27, religion that is pure and undefiled towards God is this, visit orphans, widows, and their affliction. He's writing to a church. Acts 2.44, all who believe were together and had all things in common. They were selling their possessions, belonging, distributing the needs of all. It's in the church. 1 John 3.17, if anyone has the world's good and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? It's talking about the church. In other words, we'll find in the New Testament, there is a lot of care going on and it's within the body of Christ, you see? And so that's where the, the gospel begins to show itself is how we love and care for one another. It would be very hard to find some sort of social work that the church is called to do to make sure that people way out there are fed, people way out there are dressed and clothed. No, there's something over here. There's a priority here. Even Jesus in Matthew 25, he stands and he talks about the sheep and the goats. Remember that? And he says, you visited me in prison, and you clothed me, and you fed me. And then he goes on to say this, you did it unto me. And once again, he's talking about sheep. Where are the sheep? Well, the sheep are within the body of Christ. We are to care for one another within the body of Christ. There's a priority there. So I would just say, always err on the side of the gospel, and the work that God produces from believing the gospel within the body of Christ should be manifest. But we don't want to get sidetracked, because our culture is askew in this area, and a church can get dragged in really fast. And all of a sudden, with those billboards about all that we're doing as a church, All social stuff, and at the end of the day, it's irrelevant. Okay, very good. All right, I think we're actually, we're on time, maybe. Okay, it depends on question seven. Are we okay to go over just a little bit if we keep our rapids short? Because I want to address question seven for sure. Oh yeah, no, I think we're doing okay now. Okay. All right, Pastor Todd, rapid question. What do your personal and sermon Bible, I'm sorry, personal and, oh yeah, personal and sermon Bible study routines look like? There we go. A lot of read, so personal, it's reading and researching. So I'll read something and it'll jump out at me and I'm like, hey, I wanna know more about that. Like right now I'm chasing out the wave offering, which I never noticed in the Old Testament. And so in my mind I've got people standing around going like this. And so I'm like, hey man, I wanna know what that's about. So I'll make a little note of that. And then in prep, so I'm kind of hyperactive and to have a tendency to not sit still very often. So I, years ago, I came across Deuteronomy 17, 18, talking about the kings of Israel. So when one of the kings would go to his, be put on the throne, it says, when he sets on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law approved by the Levitical priests. And in writing that, it shall be with him, he shall read it all the days of his life, and it has an intention to it, that he may learn to fear the Lord by keeping the words of the law and the statutes and doing them, and that his heart, so here's the other intention, his heart may not be lifted up above his brother. So it's a check against pride. and that he may not turn aside from the commandments either to the right or to the left, and he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children in Israel." So I write scripture all the time. I have, I don't even know, probably about eight journals that are full, and I like to be very efficient, so I make sure every page has got writing on it. And I just write, I write the scriptures, I write the scriptures, I write the scriptures as many times as necessary so that my brain slows down and I actually pay attention to and digest what it is I'm reading. And in that practice, you find things, one of the biggest things for me is how many times I've gone through John chapter three, and for he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and never ever realized that in context, that is being preached to a religious man in the community. Nicodemus. I'm like, wow, I never connected that to Nicodemus. And so for me, it was just a eye-opening realization that God can save self-righteous people. You know, you talk about the power of the gospel, there it is on display. And so that's my unrapid response. But there you go, I'll end that point. I guess we're all buying journals and starting to write the scripture. They can thank us, the journal industry is about to boom. Okay, very good. All right, here's the big one for Keller that he's been dying to answer. Dying, yeah. Dying, okay. Is the practice of egalitarianism in this church a sin? And, see how excited he is. Okay, egalitarianism is teaching that men and women are equal in rights and roles. What does CBC practice? Can you give us some examples? Okay, yeah, and we're gonna go over it. It's already 10, but this is... It's perfect that you're the one going over. You guys all know. You know. Okay, so let's define this first. So the question is, is egalitarianism a sin? Obviously, that's a complicated word. Let's define these two things. There's two positions that we're concerned about. Egalitarian, very simply, consider it as this. Men and women are equal, praise the Lord, but there are no gender-based roles or limitations, okay? Equal. with no gender distinction in terms of roles. The other side of that is what's called complementarianism. And complementarianism is men and women are created equal, but they have different roles defined by God. Okay, so that's just the two options. Both believe men and women are created equal, but one has roles, distinctions, and the other doesn't. So this obviously affects marriage, it affects Leadership in the church, big time. That's a huge one. That's why it's an important question today. It affects parenting. It affects society in general. This is not a small topic. That's one reason why we wanted to get this in here. Now, you guys know I'm not very wishy-washy about things. So what I'll say is that the Bible is clearly 100% always complementarian. There is no place where we can make an argument that the Bible teaches this egalitarianism, that there is no role differences. You just look at creation roles. There's differences in creation. The Trinitarian concept, which if we're in the image of God, just the Trinity itself tells us about it's one God with three persons. All three persons are equal, right? They're all God, but there are distinct roles between the Father, Son, and the Spirit. It's very black and white. When you look at marriage texts, such as Ephesians 5 or 1 Peter 3, you see differences in roles and design. In church leadership, 1 Timothy 2.12, not having women, or permitting women to teach, or 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, men as elders, and the clear distinction there for leadership. So you see these things in the scriptures as defining roles, which would be the complementarian side. And so I would also argue that egalitarianism is actually, it's informed by politics. It's very much a political movement within the church. It is an accommodation to culture, and it's a compromise of the scriptures. It's really in that social war category. Egalitarianism is ultimately a form of feminism, which has now been sort of overtaken by cultural Marxism. So it's under the Marxist ideology at this point, which is to destroy all things, including the family. So here's the most compelling thing, though. If you just remember this one thing, if marriage is a picture of Christ loving and dying for his bride, redeeming her and the bride submits to her Christ and loves and respects and honors, that picture of what marriage is, is clearly complementarian. And if we were to say that no, there are no gender roles, then the egalitarianism, it flattens the gospel and it starts to corrupt the gospel by saying that there's no role distinction between Christ and the church. You see how huge that is? It just slaughters the gospel. It perverts the gospel to say that Christ and the church are interchangeable. That the church might be able to save Christ. And boy, is that, I mean, we should just tremble with that thought that there would ever be some suggestion that there is any role or lack of roles between Christ and the church. And that's what marriage is designed to do. That's what marriage points to. That's what it's all about. The marriage Bible teaches complementarianism in all areas of life. And it's a blessing and it's wonderful and it's good because it's God's way, right? It's good. So to answer the question, is, egalitarianism as a practice of sin, I would say yes it is. Because it's contrary to the scriptures. The question, is it a sin to teach egalitarianism in your church? And I say, yes, it is. Absolutely is. So how do we handle it at CBC? We teach complementarianism doctrine in everything. All of our sermons, counseling, we're gonna deal with roles and emphasize biblical roles in our marriage counseling. Pre-marriage counseling, we spend weeks talking about roles and those distinctions. It's throughout our teaching. You'll also see men leading in the church. There's strong biblical warrant for that. Men are preaching, men are doing announcements, men are leading music. This is all intentional. This isn't just because we have a bunch of lazy women, right? One of the questions that we did have related to this is why women don't read scripture at CBC. And I can tell you, there are so many women here that would read scripture so well. It would be such an honor, right? However, it is intentional for us for men to lead the church. And so we... we look at men and we say, help us lead the church, come and read scripture. And so that's an intentional way with everything. And yet, as we say that, you know, being part of this church that the women in this church serve so well, so thoroughly, so self-sacrificially, and they are such a blessing to this church. It has nothing to do with any sort of distinction in value or quality, right? So that's a lot, but I'm happy to talk to people afterwards about that if need be. Yeah, very good. Okay, we got three rapid response. Do we want to do this? Oh, it's only 1005. Let's go. Let's go. That's what we have to be rapid. Yeah, let's do this. All right. Okay, Pastor Todd, how do you personally stay encouraged in ministry during difficult personal seasons? Okay, that sounds rapid. Well, Yeah, I don't know how to rapid that one. I guess if I had to say one thing for us and our family with the things that we've been going through and I'm going through now and we'll go through in the future is that it all boils down to be faithful today. And if you can hold that, You can hold anything. And that has to be underpinned and coupled with a good and sovereign God and the reminder that we live in a cursed world. And there is nothing about this world that will echo into eternity except for the church and the word, which makes us remain sane. So that would be it. Remain faithful. today. Very good. All you have to do it is today. Tomorrow you do it today. I was just going to say real fast and that is the amount of things that Todd goes through, Keller has been through, these brothers, I don't know If you're aware, but there is real trials and yet they're here loving, serving, praying, preaching, teaching, counseling each one of you and their hearts, their minds, their schedules are open. Just so you know, these men truly love and want to serve you with everything they've got. Very good, and Keller, what do you wish the church to know about being a pastor? I think this was sort of answered earlier, and I'm gonna say it again. Being a pastor is simultaneously the greatest thing that you could ever imagine. It is so beautiful, it's so encouraging, so wonderful, but simultaneously, it is also the hardest, most painful thing that you'll ever deal with. And that's because we experience such high volume of joys and trials and joys and pain and we feel all that pain. And then sometimes we come under attack as well. And that is always very uncomfortable. So we appreciate your prayers. We value your prayers. We really value those messages when you send something like, hey, that was an encouragement or thank you for this. Any of those little statements that might feel like a little throwaway thing for you is such a, heartwarming encouragement to us. And we do, we love you guys so much. Okay, finally, Akash, you're gonna finish us out. Oh, there's one more? Yeah, wrap it up, so you got 15 seconds. Okay, this should be a fun question. How do you decide what to preach or teach on next? Great question, okay. Well, again, Old Testament, right? I mean, the first book I preached over here, besides some of the other, oh, let me back up. The first thing I did was do the Old Testament over here in this church, and that was a summary, a survey, which was just a joy for my heart. But the first book I got to preach expositionally, 1 Thessalonians, reason being, Paul was in that church for a week and a half, and the church was so used by the Lord that places in Achaia and Asia, people already knew the gospel because of this church. So I wanted to give this church that encouragement, and then to the Old Testament, go to Malachi, see Christ over there, come back to the Sermon on the Mount, and see what the Lord Jesus Christ teaches about the grace and kindness of the gospel. Move back to the Old Testament, go back to Nehemiah, come back to the New Testament, go to the Book of Acts, go back to the Old Testament, do Jonah, come back to the New Testament, do philippians and then to take hebrews which is old testament exposition take revelation which is old testament exposition in other words every single thing that i try to do over here is to take whatever i'm preaching reach for that passage pull out the entire old testament so that you see your bible as a whole book in fact Song of Solomon, midweek. It was all Old Testament, all about Christ. It was, you know, at the end of the day, a Christology. And then where we are right now, or where have been a remark, and then as we're heading now into back Old Testament, into Ruth and Jonah, and then to First Timothy, for the church to be, encouraged and to have this understanding of ministry. I can't wait for First Timothy, that we will understand what it means to be pastors, ministers, elders, deacons, and how we serve one another. This is not a manual for a church. It's actually full of rich theology for ministry that I pray goes on forever in this church as whole Bible believers. So that's... as short as I could make it. That's helpful, yeah. Very helpful. Alright, well, we've definitely gone into Keller time and maybe even a little extra Keller time. Can I read this real quick? Yeah, please. This is now Akash time. Just first Timothy 1, 17 and then you can close us because this is, at the end of the day, the sweetest thing where Paul says these words. To the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Amen. All right, Pastor Todd, do you want to close us in prayer? Sure. Father, thank you. Thank you, Lord, for taking the greatest need in our life that we didn't even consider to be a need, which is our separation from you, our open rebellion towards you, our sin that would have not only had separated us from you, but would have cast us into hell for eternity to pay a price that we could never pay. And we praise you and thank you, Lord, that you have taken that and you have, through Christ, reunited us with yourself. And that we have such a sweet relationship that it eclipses everything else in our life. May Christ be the prominent display that fuels our hearts and our minds and our strength, that we would see Him and see nothing else. And as we see Him and see nothing else, that it would just pour out of us naturally a love for your people, a love for your word, a love to truly encourage one another, realizing that every day we get one day closer to going home. And no matter how crazy our week was, or even how crazy this day is, it will end being one day closer to home. And we just praise you for that, Lord. Thank you for this church family. Thank you for the sweetness of it, of just who they are. And thank you for these questions that came, that had a thoughtful heart behind them. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.