Psalm 51 and verse 5 is our text for this evening's testimony. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Amen. Blessings, a reading of God's Holy Word. Let's pray and ask his blessing upon our time here this afternoon. Father in heaven, we thank you for this opportunity that you've given us for me to give my testimony and call to ministry to your people here. I pray that you would indeed bless our time. Would you encourage and edify us? And would you be pleased, Lord, to give me the freedom to speak at this time? I pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. So, Psalm 51. That's how it all starts. In 1984, the date of my birth, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. I was a son of Adam. I was dead in transgressions and sins. That's how I came into this world, and I was born into a Christian home to John and Shirley Tobler, again in 1984 in Champlain, Minnesota. My folks were both Christians, evangelical Christians. I think my dad had come to Saving Faith probably about nine years before my birth. I don't know what it was, some type of crusade type thing that caught him. ended up hooking up with a guy that, you know, had shared the gospel with him and then began to mentor him. My mom grew up in a Lutheran church, probably much, you know, nominal things going on in her home. And, you know, the Lord had saved her at some point in time early on in her childhood when her mother, her grandmother, her mother wasn't a big influence in her early life. Grandmother had been faithful to teach her catechism and hymns and things like that. That's what I was born into, and we attended an evangelical church. I believe there were members there for basically my whole childhood, and I don't remember a whole lot. I remember being in the sanctuary a lot and being, for the most part, involved in the worship service. I remember Children's Sunday School. But not a whole lot about it. It probably just seemed to me more like a daycare than it did, you know, anything with regards to instruction. At home was about the same. I can remember maybe a period in time where we were being really diligent in Bible memorization. Psalm 23. That was about it. Obviously, no catechism or anything like that, and no family devotions. That was not a part of our life. My most fond memories are my dad with his Schofield Bible, Schofield reference Bible, and it was all marked up. It had pen and pencil, and he would put his 10XXX next to his favorite passages, you know, and every part of the Bible was highlighted, probably, except for some genealogies or something like that. So I would do the same. I had an interest in that, wanted to copy Dad. But that was about it in terms of any Christian education growing up. And I like to say that, you know, in that period of time in my life, my parents did the best with what they had. But there wasn't any influence, there wasn't any, you know, exposure to the Reformed faith, at least in their circles, or what they had access to. My dad had his mentor, Arnie, who we'd go over and he'd do Bible studies with him. Very godly man. I have fond memories of him. But that was it. So that's about my upbringing, and we, you know, we prioritized all the things that you would expect an evangelical church to prioritize, you know. There was no idea of Sabbath, you know. We had a general idea we should be around the people of God, should be at church, but sports and things like that took precedent. And so this goes up until about 1998, 96 or 98, I would have been about 14, just getting into high school, where things start to sort of hit the fan in terms of what kind of man I was going to be. I can remember certain decisions of people I would hang out with, you know, turning points in my young life as to who I was hanging out with, who I wasn't. The Mormon neighbor had a better moral code than me and the other boys did. I remember when he heard some bad things being said, and he parted ways with us forever. That was it. I remember that. That was significant. He was very upright. We had no concept for that. We had heard what we heard from the kids at the playground, and now we were talking that way and doing those things. But that was about the turning point, and that's where more of an open rebellion began to take place. I say open rebellion because I was born a rebel. And so this is a transition, a phase, a new phase in my life, and it's marked by Proverbs 24. No, we're not quite there yet, but I'll read it because this is where I have it in my notes. Proverbs 6 and Proverbs 24, they're basically identical verses. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest. Your poverty will come in like a vagabond and your need like an armed man. John Owen, at the end of Volume 1 of The Glory of Christ, gives several reasons why folks don't close with Christ, to use better terms. And I believe this is the first or second one. And he says it's because... they make the excuse, the flesh or the devil entertain the idea that you can wait a little bit before you come to Christ. You see, I had known that I needed to do something to turn my life around. It was intrinsic to my humanity that I had to go back to God at some point in time. And I had known growing up, I had heard that by about this time, probably somewhere around here that my dad had caught fire or caught hint of MacArthur sermons. And I had begun to hear that. And so I knew that. I knew I had to get right with God. And as I make this step towards rebellion, a rebellion against my parents, it was always in the back of my head that eventually I need to get right with God, but not yet. Now wasn't the time, but I knew I had to do it. And this verse, I think so wonderfully speaking of the spiritual depravity that comes upon the person who spiritually slumbers and spiritually sleeps for a while. And that was me. And it was true. And we had, as for church, as for content, before I, you know, stopped, refused, I actually refused to go to church, just stopped going. But before then, we had a youth campus where they had now moved the youth, as they do, off, entirely off the campus, right? So you get there, your parents go to, you know, church, and then the youth, they, you know, walk a couple blocks, and then you go in, and they had strobe lights, and, you know, somebody playing guitar and playing Christian worship music, you know, with no message whatsoever. easy enough for me to step away, right? Nothing to try to hold me in, no content. I was, you know, like, I can get that elsewhere. I can go and listen to my, you know, older brother's Guns N' Roses CDs or whatever, you know, so. So that's where I was at. Like I said, my dad had been introduced to MacArthur, and all throughout this, you know, going up until the end of high school, I'm hearing these things because I have to get rides, and it's driving me crazy. It's bothering me. My friends made fun of it, you know. They would scorn and laugh at my dad for playing these tapes. I wouldn't laugh with them, though I wouldn't affirm what I was hearing. I wouldn't appropriate what I was hearing. But I remember that very vividly, as does my brother. And I would think about my actions and consequences often. I knew exactly where I was going if I died, without a doubt, but I kept putting it off. I can remember the years, year or two up to my conversion, I would be talking to my friends, wherever we were, about the reality of God and about the pending judgment coming. Coming to me and coming to you. I can remember significantly conversing with several friends at a gathering until about 2 or 3 in the morning. You know, I remember even getting them, you know, this is what I just regurgitated from MacArthur in the car. I remember them leaning in and hearing what I had to say. A couple went off. Here is this guy preaching though. He's living, you know, living like the devil. So it had never, it had never escaped me. It never gone away. I just, you know, continually pushed it down and would sit on it because obviously my conscience was convicting me all along. And the significant, you all have heard this before, but the significant point in my conversion would be my brother's conversion. And really, I think my dad stepped forward in maturity as a believer. You know, he had gone beyond listening to MacArthur tapes and now had gotten a hold of good, solid reformed literature, had begun reading it. My brother is converted at about the, I think he was, let's see, he's 20 and I'm about 24. And that just rocks my world. You know, I thought my little brother was going to, you know, come and sort of, you know, enter into all the things I was doing. And he didn't. And we worked together. And we would work until 9 p.m., and then they had a Bible study, because my dad had another man who was a Christian. And they would have a Bible study after, and that absolutely drove me nuts. I think they must have been praying for me in there, because it wouldn't have been just another few months where I'd be converted. But they would sit in there in the Bible study and they'd invite me in. And if you can imagine, the gym office is a little room like that and they're there having a study and I will not go in there. I will not walk in that door. And I would stay out in the gym and just occupy myself, you know, bouncing on the tramp or... doing whatever, and it would be several months down the road where, you know, those things just began to, I guess you would say, take hold of me. You know, I began to think more and more about it. My conversion experience is probably over the course of a couple days. One was a ride home from a friend's cabin where I was overwhelmed and had to pull over and couldn't figure out what to do. And I found that turning on the Christian radio station was sort of just what pacified me. And that wasn't the moment, but I turned it on. I was enjoying it, you know? That's all you had at that point in time, right? I couldn't, like, turn on... I didn't even know hymns existed, or psalms. So the best thing I knew to do was turn on the radio station. Why forget the letters of it? And then it would be, I can't remember, either a couple days or maybe a couple weeks later, that one day I was home alone. I was expecting family to be home. They weren't home. I'd come home and then I just started looking around at all the Bible verses and things around the house, exploring a little bit. And that was probably, I would say, was it. From that point on, you know, a switch just turned. It was like 180. everything really, because of the sinful lifestyle I came out of, everything turned around. Everything, it was drastic. To the point where I look back and think, man, I wish I would have done that different just for the sake of witnessing to this person, you know. I don't know how I would have done it better. But, you know, as you would expect, you know, some of those verses come to mind. You know, they think it, It's interesting when you don't join them in this or that, right? I forget what verse that is. I should have, you know, that was what I got. They couldn't believe it. They were beside themselves. And it got to them too. I still think of some of them today. I still talk to some of them and still want to reach out to them. I can remember a couple that called me bawling drunk at a party, you know, asking why I was judging him. Can you imagine that? That's the effect that it had. He called me bawling at a party asking why I was judging him, because I didn't go to the party and wasn't drinking with him. So that was it, you know. That life was behind, you know, repentance, turn 180, you all get that. I was born again. God brought me to repentance. He gave me to see my sins. You know, the first step that 1 John 2 says about You know, your sins are forgiven. That was the thing that hit me first, was the forgiveness that I had of my sins. You know, that first step of the Christian walk. My view is that he's talking about levels of maturity there in John. And I can see that from experientially. I can see from Bunyan's pilgrim's progress in my own life that this whole process, this whole conversion process was drawn out. you know, as I began with repentance and then learned more and more about the gospel and the fullness of the gospel over the course of the next year, I would say. Let's see here. It was a long time. It was a long process before coming to see the fullness of the gospel. But one thing I knew was I was forgiven and that I owed everything to Christ. I didn't know how to express that at that point in time. But that's what I knew at that point. So I was born again. I was given a new heart. Salvation belonged to the Lord. I didn't know it yet, you know, how to word it like that. I didn't know about Calvinism, but that was for sure it. People would say things to me and see me at a, you know, gas station or whatever. And I've told you guys this before. I think back and I'm like, what could I have said? Yeah, I just, I didn't do this to myself. You know, come listen to what God has done in my life is what I should have said. But I was, you know, I don't know. I told her, I hear you're a holy roller now. I don't think I said anything, I think I just shrugged my shoulders. So, I'm converted and I join with my family. at the evangelical church they're at. And the Lord gave me just an immediate hunger and thirst for the truth. He just gave me this insatiable desire to arrive at what He would want us to do. And immediately, not critically, but things that I saw in the church and the worship service that I was reading in the New Testament and just thinking, why isn't this here? What is going on here? We had a college youth group, and they had women coming up and teaching. They would alternate between men and women. And I just thought, this is not how it's supposed to go, I don't think. I'd heard MacArthur sermons. I asked a neighbor, and my neighbor, who I just talked to actually earlier this year, who are still there, and I said, hey, I'm looking for just good Bible teaching. We're at this church, but I want to get good Bible teaching. Oh, you've got to go down to John Piper's church. So sure enough, Bethlehem Baptist, I go to Piper's church. And that's where I was introduced to good Reformed theology. The two significant books were John Owen, The Glory of Christ, the Puritan paperback, and then R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God. So those two books just rocked my world. And after that, I just started. I made good friends with Matt, the bookstore guy. I still stay in touch with him, too. Not frequent, but once a year, touch base, see how he's doing. Developed a good relationship with him and grew, I don't want to say leaps and bounds, but I had gotten a bit of a foundation there and a bit of an appetite for what I should be looking for. You know, in terms of how to guide me in reading the Bible. Don't need to talk about Piper, no. So, 2010. Yeah, 2010. The next step is coming to the Reformed Faith. So this was... I had gone, moved to Fargo for a job, and I had been looking, I didn't know what to look for, but I looked up Reformed Church, and then Community Baptist popped up. And sure enough, I go there and walk in, and they're singing psalms and hymns, and there's fellowship, all these things that I had never, I didn't even know this kind of thing existed. It was very weird, but very pleasant to me. It was what I was looking for as a young convert, a young rascally convert. It was everything I needed. So I came to the Reformed faith. I was discipled, taken under the wings of everybody invited over. You know, almost every Sunday I had somewhere to go. And that was great. I was introduced to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, imputation of righteousness. When I came to grab hold of those things, that was significant. It was like I was born again again. I had never heard those. I had never heard those in the church that I was at prior to that. Now, I don't know if there was ever a text that would have lent itself to that, but I never heard imputation by the righteous, never heard anything of double imputation, never anything about justification. And that was amazing. And yeah, this was an amazing time, as I've already mentioned, of growth. And I'll say at this point in time, this goes to 2013, from this point, and probably even before that, even the guys I was hanging out with when I was still in Minnesota, I always had a desire, as I mentioned, to defend the truth, but to see others embracing and growing the same. I had already come to Calvinism. Before I moved to Fargo and I remember not in such a Not in a pleasant way, but I remember just wanted to tell everybody about this, right? I want you to know what's going on here and I want to see you come to the see the same thing that I see in scripture and so that came with me and I I did have opportunities to really get engaged and even exercise some leadership. I remember I So when I moved there, I was on the internet. And I was typing in, I knew MacArthur. So I was like MacArthur Seminary and looking for links. And it pulled up this guy in South Dakota that had graduated from Master's Seminary. And he was eight hours away. And I thought, I'm going to go visit. I'm going to call this guy and see if he knows any good churches in the area. Eli Sanchez, so I call him he says come on down and stay with us, you know and worship with us I drove to South Dakota the first week I was in there just to get a hold of somebody who knew what I was looking for Anyways, I told this guy and and just kind of expressed some of my desires and he just encouraged me You know, he asked me questions about desire for ministry and this and that, you know, cause you could see obviously I was, you know, had a hankering towards that. And he just told me, he says, just go and try to preach the gospel everywhere. Look for every opportunity that you can find, you know, go to the homeless shelter, go to the jail, go whatever. So. I kept that in the back of my mind even as I joined the church in Fargo. And so I had done that. We went to the homeless shelter, another gentleman and I there, and led a Bible study. And then brought some of these homeless guys with us to McDonald's after to go and further study. you know, whatever your thoughts are on homeless guys. These guys that were actually interested were guys who had come from, were either going to the oil boom or coming from it, you know, sort of transitioning their way back. So these were the guys that seemed to be more interested. The people that were just there to stay weren't really interested for obvious reasons. So anyways, I don't know why I needed to mention that. But that was great. That was encouraging to me. I loved doing that. That was part of what instilled in me a love for teaching. And further love for seeing people grow in understanding the Bible and even understanding the Reformed faith. I still think about I gave this gentleman who moved to Florida a copy of R.C. Sproul's Holiness of God, and I wonder today if he read it, you know, he still got it or what happened to that. So studies with the homeless men at McDonald's began to The heart of a shepherd really began to grow in me, I would say, at this point. I really loved seeing the looks on their faces. I remember those conversations. I remember opening up certain portions of John and seeing them, you know, be troubled but rejoice at the same time. And I thought, wow, that's an amazing thing. But at the same time, what I learned at this time was that you don't call yourself to ministry. I'd had some understanding of inwardly looking for a call to ministry and desiring that and having that be a good thing. But a brother from the church that he and I would meet together in the mornings for prayer once a week, and we were talking about this, and he said, you can't run from the ministry. You can't run from the ministry. And I thought, yeah. That's a good way to think of it. I don't know what the conversation led to, but the idea was just be faithful, serve the church faithfully, God is going to get his ministers. You can't run from the ministry. If you're destined for the ministry, you can't run. God will bring his ministers in. I held on to and started thinking about 1 Timothy 3, 1. It is a trustworthy statement. If any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. That was good. That was encouraging. But it balanced out with Hebrews 5, 4. No one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was. And so my evaluation matured and desire began to grow at the same time as I saw the necessity of both. So 2013, I haven't given you the years yet, but 2013 to 2022 is the next chunk of years that we'll look at. This is where I was learning how to serve the church. I'd been discipled and now I had learned how to, you know, I had all these wow and awe moments as I'm learning and growing. Now I'm learning how to serve the church, how to love the church and the people of God. And it was an odd time. I took a job in Northfield where there wasn't a good church. So looking for ways to serve there and ways to be involved was kind of odd. I took a man who ended up coaching for me almost the whole time there and led him through a study and mentored him, still stay in touch with him to this time. That was sort of an encouragement at that time. And I just felt like I couldn't help myself, I guess is a good way to put it. Wherever I was, I just couldn't help. you know, not that I couldn't help it. Like, I forced myself, but I couldn't help it. It would just organically come about in conversations. For example, in Valley City, I don't have this in there. But still, one of my, probably my best friends right now, Austin Lee, was a barista at the coffee shop there. And it just organically happened that I ended up mentoring him my whole entire time there. And we're now, like, best buddies. You know, that was a couple of years. So this is another case, Sheldon Volkert. where that took place. Let's see. Yeah, that was in Northfield. Northfield is 2013 to 16. I couldn't help myself, and yes, that's, I forgot to say that. I could have helped myself if people wouldn't appreciate it. If people didn't appreciate it, I could have. I obviously wouldn't have forced myself upon it, but it seemed that that was the case at least, so. And then in 2014 or 15, I can't remember, But my first opportunity to any public exercise of teaching is here in this church, as I stumbled my way through those scripture readings. I don't know how many it was, but I think that was 2015. So, that was the first real opportunity where I actually stood in a pulpit and was able to address the people of God. So, that was good. And it was here that Pastor Paul Rendell began to encourage me about future ministry. It was the first time I'd actually had a conversation about it. The Lord knew I wasn't ready at that time, but I held on to those things and took them to heart as encouragement. But I think it was here where I began to get a sense, and this is something that oftentimes people are asked in terms of the pastoral office, I began to get a sense that I couldn't picture myself really doing anything else. which was very perplexing throughout the course of the next several years with work and all that. And it goes into my marriage, getting married to Melissa. She knew that going in. She knew that was a possibility. I basically said, I don't know what it looks like, but I think that might be a possibility in the future. You know, I had selected Melissa. I had considered Melissa in light of that, you know. So it wasn't off my radar, you know. I had gotten such good counsel for marriage and what to look for in a woman and how to think through all that, you know. And that was probably the one thing I thought most about. So obviously many other good and amazing things about Melissa that drew me to her. But that was for sure the one thing I thought was, if I am a minister, could she be a minister's wife? Resounding yes to that, at least so far. So from 17, let's see. So we get married. We move to Fargo. And opportunities of teaching in the church opened up in a great way there. I would teach everything from elementary to adult Sunday school. A long time with our middle school kids teaching through the confession, I think up to chapter 8. We'd rotate with other men with all ages. We had actually a group of men who were being considered for teaching. At that time, we actually took part in a preaching class with several of these men. So that was going on, rotating with teaching almost every Sunday, some form of Sunday school. And we hosted, I hosted a men's study, so that had gone on organically. I just got in with the guys in the church, the young single guys, young married guys, and we got together weekly for a study for a portion of time. Every Sunday we would host a time of fellowship. We'd lead a book study there and basically was mentoring a handful of Christian young men on the way as well. So it was a very encouraging time, both internally and externally, a time of confirmation that I had the gift of teaching. I believe we're being recognized there and would continue on even into our time in Valley City. As I had mentioned with Austin Lee, even though it was a very small church, small church plants that didn't provide much opportunity for anything like that in the church, but in the community, there was much opportunity. I led a Bible study on a Sunday night through Ephesians. That was really great. You know, probably the first time officially doing something like that. And, um, yeah. And so that's 2017 to 2022. And 2022 right here, again, would be my first preaching opportunity. Would come here in this building, as you all know. June, I think it's June of 2022, Pastor Rendell and I, sometime prior to that, we were down here for a family visit and he and I had got together and talked. I can't remember what the occasion was for why we were down here. But we got to talking about ministry and he had asked me something along the lines of the question if I still had a desire for ministry. And I said, I think so, but I haven't had the opportunity to preach, or at least preach formally. I've had opportunities, but never formally. But I think I can preach is what I said. I say that I, you know, not in a proud way, but I had really just for years been preaching in my head all the time. I just had never really stopped. Whenever I was reading, whenever I was studying, I was always preaching. I was always reading in order to teach or reading in order to apply it or bring it. So I just said that to him. And sure enough, we, you know, I arranged, I forget how it went, arranged a time for me to come preach. And yeah, the rest is, I suppose, history, you would say, over the course of the next two years. You guys know how all that's come down this past couple years. It's really, I mean, it's been the only testing opportunity, so obviously it is further confirmed, and I encourage my desire for pastoral ministry. I love what I'm doing. I love serving you all in this capacity. I love the preparation of preaching. It's really never easy, but it's something I enjoy laboring in. Any confidence or encouragement I have in this regard is all from you, so... To me, that's a great thing. 1 Timothy 6.3, in terms of, you know, what... This is Peter van Maastricht's title to his practical theoretical theology. And this is really what is the desire of my heart, is to see these things... brought together as, you know, a Reformed Baptist Church, if anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness. That's that theoretical, practical theology. I love seeing that upholding doctrine, but seeing it mixed together with godliness, because to be quite honest, it's not. If you don't have one, you don't have the other. If you don't have You don't have the Christian faith if they're not brought together. And that's my desire, is to see those things upheld in your midst. And ultimately, the Puritan motto, for me, what I heard back, I don't remember when it was, sometime between 2010 and 2013, to teach not only myself, but the people here to live and die well to the glory of God. That was the Puritan motto. Not well in terms of easy, but well in terms of in a God-glorifying way. We want to prepare each and every day to die well. And that is my testimony and my sense of call to the ministry. I will close with prayer. I was thinking if there was a good Bible verse I could read, but I can't. So, let's close in prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you for this time. I just encourage myself even thinking through the work that you've done in my mind and heart and the work you've done in all of us here and all these events, all these things that you've brought to us in your providence. We're thankful for them. We pray again that you would Send forth your help, grant your wisdom, and grant your blessing upon all that we do and take our hands to in the weeks and months ahead. And we just pray again as we conclude here that you would give us to take the things that we've heard pertaining to your word. Take them with us in our minds and hearts into the week. and use them as a means of stirring each other and ourselves up to love and good deeds and to faithful service to you, our triune Lord. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.