Good evening. I am glad to be here, and I'm glad that I have the opportunity to understand grace like I do. I'm glad to be a part of a group of pastors who call themselves preachers of grace. I thought about what that means, you know, doing the opening. I guess I can't speak for everybody. I can speak for myself. What do I mean when I say that I'm a preacher of grace. And what would I mean if I said that I believe another pastor is a preacher of grace? And I guess there are some people who would say that we've given ourselves that name because we believe in predestination. I'm assuming, knowing Brother Harold, that most of you all believe in the Bible, and you believe in predestination, and you believe in election. And so, you know, I thought about Maybe that's something that somebody would think. This is the reason that we've called ourselves preachers of grace and what we mean by it. And while those things are often associated with grace, I think there's a little more to it than that. Some people might say that we preach fatalism. That's something we're going to get stuck with. You know, nothing matters. You don't need to pray. You don't need to witness because God's already got it all worked out. And so those crazy Calvinists, that's what they're going to preach. And they think that it doesn't make any sense for us that we would do anything if God's already figured it out. But we know that's not true. Some people might say that we've got a particular hobby horse and that's why we call ourselves preachers of grace. You know, we've got our little ivory tower social club and we'll climb up there and beat out some of the finer points of theology. And I tell you, I think Abraham didn't think election was a secondary issue for his calling. That was the most important thing. God called me out of the world. Some people would say that we're antinomian, that is that we don't have any law because we're dead to the law and we believe that Christ did it all. They would say, well, you know, these people, these crazy antinomian Calvinists, they don't think that there's any right or wrong, that they're free to do whatever they want. Of course, we don't believe that either because we know that there is a royal law of love. Hearts of stone turned into hearts of flesh. Some people would just plain say, we're crazy. And that has happened, hasn't it? If you've been around very long, if you've ever talked to very many people about what grace is, you've been called crazy once or twice. So what I want to talk to you tonight is what I think it really means to call ourselves preachers of grace. And I guess by preachers of grace, there's a lot more than just preachers here. This is stuff that applies to all of us. Anybody who has opportunity to witness, just be, a witness for the Lord. I think what a preacher of grace is, is someone who understands the promise. And when you back up away from all of the arguments and all of the deeper stuff, what we see is that God is sovereign in all things. And we see that salvation and everything touching it is His work. So whether we're talking about justification, Or we're talking about repentance, which is granted by Him. Or we're talking about faith or fruit. Or whether we're talking about wisdom or knowledge, glorification. Anything and everything that has to do with our lives is because of the sovereign work of God. That's what grace is. And so a preacher of grace is someone who understands that God is sovereign and that salvation is His work and it's all for the glory of Christ. And that's why we have verses that say things like, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Because we do believe in the promise that God made before the world began. That He would save His people. We believe that He alone is carrying that promise out despite who we are or what we do. So the focus for us isn't so much on predestination, even though we believe that. But for us, it's not about preachers of grace being people who just believe in predestination, but we are people who believe in our eternal union with Christ. We believe that we belong to him before the foundation of the world and that he has put us here to experience the truth that there's no greater love than that a man would lay down his life for his friends and that we, by experience, when the time is up, we'll join the saints in singing that song, salvation and glory and honor and power belong to our God. So that's what a preacher of grace is. We realize that salvation and election, it's not we're not arguing about election, but what we see is that the Godhead is responsible for everything from beginning to end. And it's not it's not about us. Not about what we do with the grace that's extended to us, but it's about the one who extends it. The one who calls us, who justifies us. So in other words, what we would say in calling ourselves preachers of grace, pretty good word, because that's what we mean. We understand what grace is. We understand what it means to have something that we don't deserve, or better yet, to not get what we do deserve. We understand that it's about Christ. So the verse that I'm I'm going to preach on 2 Timothy chapter 4, but I'm going to start in chapter 1 and just help you see the whole context of 2 Timothy. Paul's writing this letter to a young pastor, and it's his last letter, so he's getting ready to leave Timothy by himself with a big responsibility. So, we'll start in verse 8 of chapter 1. Just look at the first verse, just 8, 9, and 10. He says, you need to be aware of this gift that you have, Timothy, and of the Gospel. And be not, therefore, ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me as prisoner, but you be partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with the holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." And then you go on over to chapter 2. Just read the first two verses there. He says, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. and the things that you have heard of me among many witnesses, those same things, I want you to commit them to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. It doesn't stop with me and it doesn't stop with you. It's going to keep going. And then you flip over to chapter 3, verse 1. I want you to know this too, that in the last days, perilous times shall come for men shall be lovers of their own selves. And he just describes them. Covetous. Boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Listen to this. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." You see, the point is, in those first three chapters, that he's telling them is, he said, look, Timothy, don't be afraid. Don't be ashamed of the Gospel. The fact that I'm in prison and the fact that people mock Christ and they say He's never coming back. Don't be ashamed about those things because in the Gospel is life. That is the power of God for salvation. That's what you've been taught. Instead, what I want you to do is be strong. Not just in your own strength. I want you to be strong in the grace of Christ. He has provided atonement for you. There's no reason for you to be ashamed of anything. So instead, what I want you to do is be faithful to pass on what's been passed on to you. And there will be other people behind you who will who will pick this up and they'll learn it, but there's also going to be people who do everything they can to steer people aside. There are going to be people who do everything they can, because this is a spiritual war, to confuse the truth and to distract the sheep. So you, you're going to have to stand in that gap. And you can just picture, I mean, imagine being told by the Apostle Paul, you're taking over for me. Imagine how much That would be stressful. The church that Christ has come and established this fellowship, this ecclesia, it's now my task, I'm commissioned with picking up where all these men have left off and all of them, they died, most of them by persecution. And you can just picture him, how am I going to do this? How am I going to fulfill this task at all? Well, apart from God, he can't. And that's what Paul answers. in chapter 4, when we come to verse 1. He says, I charge you, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing in His kingdom, preach the Word. Now, the reason we call ourselves preachers of grace is because to us, this is the most important thing. To preach the Word. And when he says preach, I try to study the Greek as much as I can because it's very helpful understanding, it means to proclaim something publicly. So it's a lot more than just, you know, being a messenger. This is someone who will stand up as a light in darkness. Someone who will stand up and say, this is what God has said. Someone who believes the message of that Christ has already left his disciples. And you see, he says, preach the word. You know the Greek word, logos. It's log on here. But it's preach God's word. And you think about what that is. Well, a long time ago, God spoke, logos, to prophets. He told them certain things, didn't he? He predicted the one who would come. And you can go all the way back to the very beginning of Scripture, Genesis. You find there that Adam and Eve have disobeyed God and they've broken fellowship with Him from the garden. And what does God promise there? A seed. A seed that will come and crush the head of the serpent. He will reverse the effects of sin. And you see that promise reiterated in Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and on down to David. And all through the Old Testament with the prophets, you see Christ preached over and over and over and over again. Well, when Christ finally does come, He has some disciples. He tells those disciples, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. You see, I come from heaven, I'm the bread that came down from heaven, and I'm going to tell you what heaven is about. And he shows his disciples how all of the things of the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, are fulfilled in him. You see, people think that we have the old Jewish way and now we've got the Christian way. I guess that's sort of true, but what's more true, and how it's better to understand this, is that you have the way of God in the Old Covenant, where he predicts and he proclaims the coming of the Messiah. In a sense, he gives us a blueprint. This is what it's going to look like when he comes. And then when Christ comes, it's the fulfillment of the blueprint. This is the priest. This is the sacrifice. This is the everything that was ever in there. And so when Jesus comes, he gives his disciples some teachings, some logos. He says, what you're going to do, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to prepare a place for you, and if I go, I'll come back and get you. That where I am, there you may be also. But, you need to understand, it's going to be a while before I come back. So, I commission you to go into all the earth, the very ends of the world, make disciples, and I want you to teach them and baptize them. Those men, Responsible also for teaching even more. For passing that word on that God originally gave. God has gifted some of us. Gifted some of us to be pastors and to be teachers. He's called us to be leaders and shepherds over His church. What is a preacher of grace? A preacher of grace is an ambassador who believes God's testimony about Christ. He preaches it. And you see, we don't get stuck on pet doctrines when we talk about that. I believe God's promise. He said there's a Messiah coming, and that man came in Christ. And Christ left, and He said He's coming back. That's the Gospel. People cloud that, and they confuse it with all kinds of other little things that you have to do. All kinds of additions. The preacher of grace just believes God's promise, and he preaches it faithfully. He says, I charge you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead and the disappearing in His kingdom, preach the word, be instant, in season, and out of season." Well, the word instant here is a little bit confusing. Some translations say to be ready, and that is right, but it's not quite as rich as it could be. To be instant, to be ready. The word is actually a verb, so it's an action word. And it means, literally, to be set upon something. Other ways that it's translated, it means to stop, to halt, to stop and consider something very carefully. So, the way you might read, you know, if you're about to sign a contract, this is what you would do. You would stop and you would really examine what it says. And what Paul's telling Timothy here, he says, you need to preach the word. And if you're going to preach the word, then you have to be ready to preach it. And that means that you have to stop and really look at it. And this is something I think is very important for preachers because of Facebook. You know, and secretaries and committee meetings and on and on. I've been really blessed. I'm at Millery, Alabama, a little church called New Grace Baptist Church. It was confusing when I first went because I didn't know what my office hours were going to be. There is no office and there is no secretary and there is no phone. I mean, if you look in the phone book, you'll find my home phone number as the church number. And I said, you know, well, what are the hours? And they all look at me like I was crazy. And they said, you're a pastor. You don't have hours. It was the first church I've ever been to that actually wanted me to spend my time studying. And I've learned how important that is because I've had time to sit in a study and to really try to understand what the Scriptures are saying. You know what it frees me up to do is, well, it makes me instant in season and out of season. I know what it says. If you're a preacher of grace, that is your first priority. You're not called to be a committee leader. You're not a CEO. You're not the janitor. You're not the head deacon. You're not the office manager. You are the pastor. You are the teacher. That's what you need to do. Be instant, in season and out of season. And what that means is whether the time is right or not. It doesn't matter if you need to know this right now or not. If God is showing you something, now's the time for you to learn it and always be ready to give an answer for the hope that you have. So, a preacher of grace lives and breathes God's Word. He's ready to answer for it. He says, preach the Word, in verse 2, be instant, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. Now, the word reprove means to put something to disgrace. means to expose it for what it is. The word for rebuke means to cast sentence on something. It's the word that Jesus used when it says He rebuked the winds. Stop. That was the judgment. It's the same word that the thief on the cross used when it says that one thief criticized the other. He says, you know, you need to stop what you're saying because this man, he doesn't deserve to be here and we both do. What he was doing, he was casting sentence. You need to stop. And what Paul's telling Timothy right here is he says, you need to reprove. That is, you need to expose error and you need to rebuke. That is, that you need to cast sentence. You need to declare the things that you see when you see them wrong. Well. What this tells me is that a preacher of grace, if we're just looking at what this means for us to be this, is he's not timid. That's what Paul tells Timothy to be. Don't be timid. Don't be afraid because you're young. You're called to preach. That's what you need to do. And this is important because if you just think about what's at stake. I mean, we live in a time that tolerance is kind of the word, right? Everybody says we need to learn to get along and nobody wants to walk alone. Nobody wants to break off roads with everybody and be by themselves. And that's not what we need to do. But sometimes the desire to be at peace is so great that we're willing to overlook the things that need to be exposed and judged. And you see, what's always interesting to me is that when you think back to the garden, the snake didn't come in and bite Eve. What did he say? Half God said, And that's why ever since then, I mean, you read the New Testament and it's passage after passage about standing up for truth, for preaching truth, for stopping lies, because what we have is a spiritual war. It's not a physical assault. It's an assault on the knowledge of God, because this is life eternal, that they might know you. So for us as preachers, we've been tasked with this particular calling. Preach the Word. Be ready all the time. Don't ever have your guard down. Reprove error when you see it. Expose it. Pull that curtain back and say, this is not right. Rebuke. Say, this needs to come out. But, you know, I get in my head here. We might be tempted, you know, can you picture the guy with one eye, a little bit out of focus, and the veins under his collar, and he's full of righteous indignation. He's got his Bible in one hand, and he's pointing his finger. You know, that's kind of what I picture reproving and rebuking, but that's not all that Paul says. If you look at the next word, he says, "...preach the word of the incidences and odysseys, and reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine." Exhort means to comfort. And so that kind of changes the picture here. It changes the perspective just a little bit. We don't have this fire and brimstone preacher who comes and he starts telling everybody what dirty, rotten sinners they are. What we have is someone who comes in and he says, hey, that's not right. We should think about this. Let's study the Word together and see. Let's discover it together. And I thought about, have you ever heard of ant art before? It's kind of interesting. We have fire ants in Alabama. I think there are some in Arkansas, but not like they are in Alabama. We have hundreds of these mounds, you know, and if you've ever been bitten by one, you don't care how they die. The slower, the better. They take this, they melt down aluminum, and they pour it into the ant hole, and they let it dry. And when it's finished, You know, I guess the next day or whatever, they go in with a shovel and they begin to slowly dig around. And you have to be careful because it's aluminum. They slowly dig around it and when they get it out, it's like this tree. They turn it upside down and it's this tree of all of the tunnels. And it's beautiful. But I thought about that with what it means to reprove, rebuke and exhort. Because they don't go down there with a pickaxe and just start hammering away and pulling everything out. Instead, they very carefully, they take the shovel and they have to dig around carefully because they need something out. So when they get to it, they can gently remove it from the hole. And that's line upon line, precept upon precept. That's he shall lead his sheep like a shepherd, carry the little The little lambs in His arm, in His bosom. That's having grace when you speak. That's a preacher of grace. It was the Pharisees who raked people over the coals. Sure, they were right sometimes. People were breaking the law and the law needed to be carried out. That was the law. Preachers of grace. We reprove, we rebuke, we exhort, we pastor our churches, we pastor our people. Teach them, correct them gently. He says, with all longsuffering and doctrine. Truth. That's a preacher of grace. Verse 3, he says, the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. Now, you have to remember to keep things in its context, in its context of time. This was written before the Catholic Church had introduced icons into worship. And it was written before they introduced praying to saints. And you can just think of all of the things that they've added. It's before that. It's before the term slain in the Spirit was coined. It's before people argued about sublapsarianism or superlapsarianism. before Arianism, Arminianism, Pelagianism, Calvinism, any kind of ism. This was before that. At that time, the Gospel was plainly and simply, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Things have changed. Because now when we say, if you confess that Jesus is Lord, there's got to be an understanding of who Jesus is because there's a hundred different ways that you could see Him. A hundred different inventions. Believe. thousand different things that that means to people. Not that the word has changed or that the truth, but we have reached the time when they will not endure sound doctrine. They like religion, okay. They like doctrine, okay. But not sound doctrine. And there's a big difference because sound doctrine rules out all gods but one. Sound doctrine takes hope out of man's hands and puts it solely on God. He is the only hope that we have. And that's why we call ourselves preachers of grace, because the Gospel is not about works. The Gospel isn't about my special reward for my special wisdom or my special decision. The Gospel is about how God has sought out wicked men. Now, He has changed us and done the impossible. He has given us life. Our dead stone hearts and He's given us hearts of flesh. Taken our dead eyes and our ignorant minds and He's given us sight and He's given us the mind of Christ. That's what grace is. That's what doctrine is. That's what sound doctrine is. But when we have sound doctrine, man is not in control. It exposes error. And so all of these things that have been introduced are shown to be nothing but a sham. So they hate that. And they will suppress it. They suppress the truth in unrighteousness. But a preacher of grace preaches the plain Gospel. Let me tell you something. If you do that, you tell people there's nothing you can do to add to it. There's nothing you can do to take away from it. This was something that was settled before time began. It doesn't matter how many verses you show them. It doesn't matter how logical you are. You're not going to be popular. They're going to hate you for that. And the reason is pretty simple, because if they hated the Master, they will also hate His disciples. And so what I see when I see a preacher of grace is someone who is not accepted by the world and doesn't seek to be. That's important for us to understand. Because we live in a culture again, a Christian culture, that seeks to be culturally relevant. We want Hollywood to give us good Christian movies so we can take people there and get them saved. We want to be accepted by the world. We've got CEOs. We've got pastors who are proud that they're rubbing shoulders with the rich and the famous. And, you know, a preacher of grace, who cares? I haven't been called to be popular. Moses was not accepted. They hated him. He prayed to die because the people gave him so much grief. You know, some people get a complex. They just wish for persecution. They wish for people to hate them. And you'll get it. But if you suffer for doing good, that's God's will. You know what? I'm ready to give an answer. I've got grace. I know what the Scriptures say. I know what the promise says. And what I say is actually freeing. I'm not going to bind you down with the rules of legalism. But they don't like that. That's a good indication to us that we're doing what's right, because we are sheep among wolves. So, if you're a true preacher of grace, you're going to look like a sheep in a wolf's skin, and you're going to feel that way. You can trust. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. He will never leave us, nor forsake us. Continuing in verse 3, the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching They will pay someone to say the things that they want to hear. Sometimes it's obvious. I mean, I know in our Sunday schools and our services, we've got our favorites that we like to pick on. Everybody likes to pick on Joel Osteen. He's obvious. Rick Warren. Those guys are easy. They're big, easy targets. There are some guys that aren't quite so obvious. Some look a lot like us. That's the point. false teacher. It doesn't say that they kick the door down and lead women astray with a noose around their necks. It says that they creep into the houses and they trick them. They look good. But the method for telling, you know, someone who's obvious, he's easy. It's easy to spot. Why? Because he strays away from Christ. Someone who's not so obvious, how can you tell if he's telling you the truth? How can you tell if he's a true teacher? It's exactly the same. He strays from Christ. When his gospel becomes something about what you do. When it's centered on something other than Christ. You know, Christ will save you and it's by grace that you're saved through faith, but you've got to do this. It's a false gospel. He's wrong. Hope. You think about the gospel. I mean, it took me a long time to figure this out. I think of, okay, when I'm saved, that means first I'm going to be baptized, and then I'm going to start going to church, and then these sins are going to be knocked out, and then I'm going to start serving in this way. What if none of that happens? I mean, you know, you're supposed to be baptized, right? That's a commandment. You're supposed to change in your life. What if it looks different? I mean, can we say that a person isn't saved because his experience, his response isn't the same as ours? How do we know that a person is saved? Obviously, we can't know hearts. But what's the test that the Bible gives us? What is Antichrist? Anyone who says that Jesus didn't come in the flesh. That's all it says. How is a man saved? If you confess and believe. When the Ethiopian wanted to be baptized, Peter didn't ask him to explain the plan of God for salvation. He didn't sign him up for a discipleship class. He said, hey, you believe in Christ? I'll baptize you until your fruit shows otherwise. You're with us. And if you read the New Testament, it's almost shocking because they look naive. All these people are going to come in. False teachers are going to creep in. How? Isn't someone standing at the door watching? Well, that's the job of the pastor. But his job and the church's job They commune together to learn about Christ, to focus on the promise, to proclaim His death until He returns, to walk with anybody who walks that way. Do you believe He's coming back? Do you have hope in that promise? Do you show the fruit? You're going to show the fruit because you believe it. So, a preacher of grace, he's not so much worried about what people say, or what people want to hear. When a preacher of grace sits down, this is, you know, the first thing, I'm preaching through Exodus. I'm going to preach my introduction to Exodus on Sunday morning. When you sit down with the book of Exodus, man, you know, you can find all kinds of doctrines and all kinds of things that you could talk about. The most important thing that you can do when you sit down and say, where does this point me to Christ? It doesn't matter what you're reading. You know, people talk about Ruth. Well, that's a story about love, right? No, a story about Christ. I heard on the radio the other day a guy talking about Proverbs and he was telling this woman she had called in asking a question. He said, oh no, Solomon's just talking about wisdom. He doesn't mean anything else. He's not talking about God. I think 1 Corinthians says that Christ is the wisdom of God. Proverbs is about Christ. You read Revelation and there are people, they make their entire fortunes off of these crazy, far-fetched, you know, end times prophecy stuff. And that their whole living is off of milking the sheep. Because they're going to tell us that Revelation is about crazy things that happen in the end. It's kind of crazy, isn't it? Because what are the very first words of Revelation? The revelation of Jesus Christ. And that's why it doesn't say, be afraid, be very afraid when you read this book. It says, blessed are they who read this book and blessed are they who hear it. How are we blessed? Because it's about Christ. And so when we sit down to prepare our sermons, this sermon, Preachers of Grace, what's it about? Am I telling you how you should live, how you should pastor and how you should be? No, I'm telling you, look at Christ. Preach the promise of Christ. Preach that until the very end and you will be a good preacher. Whether you have two people and no committees or whether you have 10,000 people and a church the size of, you know, some of these big churches. It doesn't matter about Christ. That's what we want to preach. But the people don't want to hear that. Those other people. And so he says here that they shall turn away their ears from the truth. That's active. I say the boy kicked the ball. That's an active verb. The boy is doing the kicking. That's what they do. They hear this about Christ and they say, no, I'm turning away from that. That's not for me. And the result is something that happens passively. They shall be turned. Because they refuse and they go this way, they're instead led by the false teachers to another place. Where? Tables. You hear that word, and the first thing we think of is fairy tales. That's not the Greek word. I'm going to tell you the Greek word. See if you can give me the English word. Mythos. Myths. Mythology. Now in English, when we say myth, that does pretty much mean a fairy tale, but that's not what it means in Greek. A myth in Greek just means something that's conveyed orally. So a myth could be a tale, could be a rumor, it could be advice, it could be anything, anything that you speak. But the key to understanding this is that it's something that comes from men. They're turned aside. The myth. We mean that they believe in these crazy far-fetched religions? Maybe. That's not the whole thing because you can have some guys who are hard to tell. You know how you can figure out if he's telling you the truth or he's telling you a myth? Speaking from himself. If he's making stuff up, he can't support it with the scripture if it's not from God about Christ. These people, they say, hey, we're religious, we follow God, we cast out demons, raise the dead, heal the sick, and all kinds of things in Jesus' name, but we don't actually want to follow that plan. Grace is not what we want. We want works. And so they turn aside from the truth and they follow after this other thing that in the end leads them to a place where they stand in front of the sun. It says, depart from me, I never knew you. They have followed after the words of men. They have forsaken spiritual truth from God for wisdom and homilies from men. That's close to home, isn't it? When I was first pastoring, I haven't been a preacher of grace for a long time, just a couple of years. I know the truth. I wasn't against it, I just didn't know. I remember watching Dr. Phil and thinking, hey, that guy's got something right there, you know. And I actually said in one of my sermons, you've got to program your environment, you know. I'm taking stuff from Dr. Phil. I did it. I did it. The wisdom of men. That's not from Christ. And it makes me cringe when I hear preachers quoting Dr. Phil or Aristotle or Plato or some of these other philosophies. Like it's going to help us understand spiritual things. They were condom men. How can they discern spiritual things? You've been gifted. Your eyes have been opened. You can see things that they can't see. Why would you want to go away from grace? Why would you want to load a burden on someone's back? When it's so freeing. It's so simple. And since we're close to home, you know, another thing I did when I was first pastoring is just I would go on Sermon Central and I'd find me 10 or 15 sermons on what I wanted to talk about and just kind of mix them all together and come out and preach that. And that's, you know, a lot of folks do that. I hope you don't. But you know, you read more commentaries and you do scripture, listen, you've been gifted to preach. Not to regurgitate what someone else has said. Someone's leftover leftovers is not desirable. Because sometimes I do read commentaries. Someone described it as something that primes the pump. But if all you're going to do is take John Gill's sermons or somebody like that and you're just going to re-preach them, doesn't that kind of make you a middleman? You know what you should do instead? Put your commentaries away. Let the Old Testament be the commentary for the New Testament and the New Testament be the commentary for the Old Testament. You will be amazed at the answers you'll find. I've run across these, you know, I just preached through Genesis and preached through Exodus. I've run across these verses and I'm like, I don't know what this even means. I don't know how I'm going to say this. And I start looking through the commentaries and I'm reading and I'm going, no, this doesn't make any sense. I don't understand. And then I start looking for cross-references and I find a verse in the New Testament and I go there and I say, oh, now I see. Why didn't any of those other guys get it? You're not supposed to be spending all your time reading them. It doesn't say to be ready to quote your favorite authors. It says to be ready to preach the Word. And so a preacher of grace refrains from leaning on the wisdom of men and instead trusts in God. He'll provide. Maybe I need help. That's not going to be my norm. I'm going to read it. I'm going to get to know it. That's why my ministry is supported. That's why I'm saying you can't bother me with all of these other issues. That's why I spend my time in the Word and in prayer. Because when I come out of here, God has prepared a Word. I'm going to preach it to you. Verse 5, he says, But you watch in all things, endure afflictions. To watch means to be sober. It's the opposite of being drunk. self-controlled or calm and collected to endure afflictions. That's actually just one word that means bad happenings. So you put them together and he's saying the same thing. Be sober in everything. Be sober in bad things. No matter what's going on, you need to keep your head on straight. And this is important for preachers because there's a temptation for us to run from persecution. Or to avoid. making someone angry because of what we say. Again, there are guys who are looking for it, and that's not good. But when you know the truth, you can lay line upon line and precept upon precept, and when you can give them... You know, you don't throw a baby at stake. You don't want to feed him poison either. You feed him. You say what's true. There's a temptation for us to say, you know, I don't want to be offensive, or I don't want to get persecuted, I don't want to be run off or whatever. You can't worry about that. I told you it's not going to be popular. Every preacher in this room who is a preacher of grace can give you a story. Every one of us. Every one of us has had some church run us off or we've had some family member call us crazy. Your story is not unique. Normal. Through much suffering, we inherit the Kingdom of God. Accept that. Okay? They're not going to love you for it. The saints will. The sheep will. Man, that's sheep food. Thank you. Feed me. The wolves won't, so don't worry about it. They're going to hate you anyway, so just feed the sheep. Tell them what's true. Don't be afraid to stand up and suffer afflictions. Don't be tempted to run away from persecution. I can tell you from personal experience, before I went to Alabama, I pastored a church close to here, and I didn't love grace. To me, it was the defining moment in my pastoring. And I thought at the time that it was about the worst thing that could ever happen. I felt like such a failure. I lost the church. They forced me to leave. And I thought, this is awful. I was embarrassed, discouraged, worried. But I got a phrase, and it's not a biblical phrase, but it has a biblical meaning. Something I say all the time now to myself, to my wife. Something I learned through that experience. Everything is on schedule. It doesn't matter what's happening. Right on schedule. Just when it's supposed to happen. So, preacher of grace, don't be afraid at their threats. Don't be intimidated by them. It's right on schedule. If God wants you to leave there, you're going to leave. And if God wants you to stay there, you're going to stay. And there's nothing they can do about it. You believe in sovereign grace, don't you? So don't be afraid. Now be careful. Don't intentionally come out and be offensive. Don't rub it in their faces. Don't hold it back either. Don't tell them lies. Endure. Be sober. Keep your head on straight in afflictions. And I would say, you know, additionally, another temptation would be try and climb a ladder. You've got a pretty good church and you've got a pretty good thing going on. Benefits and salary. You've got a nice office and a nice place to stay. We're intoxicated by that. I'm going to tell you something. Preachers are not on a ladder. They're in a field, sheep. We're going to feed them wherever God wants us to feed them. So keep your head on. The preacher of grace is grounded in faith and he's not distracted by the world. Finally, we're getting towards the end. Watch in all things and do your afflictions. Do the work of an evangelist. What is an evangelist? It's a bringer of good tidings. I love it because it's so simple. How were the good tidings presented when the angel met the shepherds in the field? What did he say? Peace on earth and goodwill toward men. Plain and simple. That's the gospel. That's the gospel we preach. Peace on earth and goodwill toward men. Look at Christ. Christ commissioned His disciples to go out. He just said to them, go and make more. That's the meaning of evangelism. That's the work of an evangelist. To take that message. There is peace with God through Christ for men. Don't add all this stuff to it. All this religious stuff. Keep it simple. Christ. Peace. Grace. Do the work of an evangelist. Make full proof of your ministry. To make full proof of something means to do it until it's finished. Paul in Colossians told that man, make full use of your ministry until it's done. Fulfill it. You've been called to this special position, preacher of grace. You've been tasked with teaching, feeding the sheep. So what we're going to do, we're not going to focus. We love to talk about predestination because it's amazing. Think that God would choose me. We don't get so stuck on that. Listen, all truth comes from Christ and all truth points to Christ. So it's all equally. It's all Exciting we're not going to focus on one thing and let that be our hobby horse What we're going to do is trust in the promise from God the witness of him about Christ We're going to preach that message until he returned quickly Lord Jesus. He says thank you for this message. Thank you for your word God, thank you for the simplicity of grace and salvation my hope and my prayer Lord that you would open our eyes and help us to see the errors that we have and God, help us to see where we can be useful to our churches. God, help us to change these things, to remove those errors, all kinds of exhortation, comfort, truth. Lord, I pray that you would be glorified in it. None of this is for our glory. None of it is for our own kingdom. We're not building anything, following you, or witnessing about you. Lord God, bless us in this. You be glorified. In your name we pray.