But I have appreciated so much since I've been here fellowship with Brother John Allen over in Manuel Baptist Church in Valparaiso. Great church, Christian school, take a wonderful stand for the Lord, host a workers conference every September that's an encouragement to all the folks around here that participate in it. and just been a blessing to see how God is using his church, his ministry, and he's been a personal blessing to me and to our church, helping us with Reseed Chicago, and we're just very grateful for him. It's my privilege to have him come preach for us now. Thank you, Brother Stringer. What a blessing it is to be here and to be a part of this conference and a chance to meet several of you. A lot of new faces here that I've not met before, and so, hi. Nice to meet you. Take your Bible, if you would, and turn to 1 Timothy chapter 3. Brother Stringer has been a great friend, a great encouragement, and has been a blessing to us. He's been at our church workers Seminar now for I think since the first year came this will be our fifth year of it and has done a tremendous job and has been a great supporter great help great blessing and I love his vision. I love his passion. I love his his dedication to the Lord and I was honored when he asked if I would come and and preach to you this afternoon and I was told that the theme for this conference is the local church, pillar and ground of the truth. And so, he asked me what message or what passage that I would like to preach from, and I said, well, the text verse sounds real good. 2 Timothy chapter, or 1 Timothy 3 and verse 15. I want us to just read verses 14 down to verse 16. And it says in verse 14, these things, right eye unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly. Now he is referring to what he has previously written. If you go back to chapter three, verse one, you'll notice that he has just given a list of qualifications for leadership in the church, pastors and deacons. These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. Let's pray, and then we'll look at this passage today. Heavenly Father, thank you for this privilege that we have to be here. Lord, I'm asking that you would guide this time of preaching. Lord, that it would be more than just a time of filling a slot, more than just an hour to pass, but God, that you would use it to help us. Lord, that we would understand that the church is the pillar and ground of the truth. And God, that we would realize that the church is not passe, as some are saying, but it is relevant. It is necessary. It is foundational. And I pray that you would use the message to be a help to every heart in Jesus name. Amen. I so appreciate the messages we've already heard this afternoon. Brother Stringer's message really inspired hope in my heart to realize that average-sized churches, small churches, medium-sized churches can be used to change the world. Wow, that's a tremendous truth. And brother, I don't even remember your name. Lucan, is that it? And what a blessing last message was. What a balanced ministry, a balanced church. I listened to him preach and I looked at my notes and I thought, I'm just gonna pass on the time. He said a lot of the things that I was gonna say, so you get to hear it in my version now. But I want you to notice, if you will, this theme or this topic as we look at this passage this afternoon, is the church still relevant? Many of our churches, are shriveling and dying. We look around the landscape of America, and it's a sad reality. The next generation seems to be going after the contemporary, seeker-sensitive, generic-labeled churches, home Bible studies, or just simply taking a pass on church altogether. Now many of our churches are filled with those who are holding on till Jesus comes. It seems to be the mantra that we hear. We have a growing number of silver-haired people who fill the pews in our churches. One evangelist, I was sitting at a pastor's conference with him. There was a couple of hundred pastors at this conference and he just mentioned to me, he said, look around the audience. He said, name the number of young men that are under the age of 40. And the truth is there was less than a handful of 200 preachers and only a few that were under the age of 40. And sadly, I'd passed my 40th birthday. But what is the problem? What's the answer? Is the church that Jesus started, built upon the rock, still relevant? Is there a plan on how we can solve this crisis in our churches? I want us to look at verse 15 again because we have a statement here. It says that, as Paul's writing to Timothy, that he needs to know how to behave himself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. He is reminding Timothy of what the church is. It's the pillar and ground of the truth. Well, let me ask you a question. Is the pillar of a building or the ground upon which a building is built optional or is it essential? Any opinions? It's essential. Okay. Is it relevant to the building survival or is it irrelevant? It's relevant. Well, let's look and see what it says here in verse 15. Again, it says, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. I want you to notice that the relevance of the church is stated here matter-of-factly. Paul is not really emphasizing this aspect as much as he is reminding Timothy how to behave himself in this church, which is the pillar and ground of the truth. You see, the church is the pillar of truth. It's the support of the truth. It sustains it against the outside storms and the natural tendency to fall. The church, as one commentator said, is entrusted with the business of maintaining the truth, of defending it from the assaults of error, and of transmitting it to the future generations. Does that sound like the kind of churches that we are seeing around our land? It doesn't seem to be that the church is the pillar anymore as much as it has its wind or its sail in the wind trying to find which way the wind is blowing and then go in that direction. But the church is the pillar of the truth. Notice also that it is the ground of the truth. Barnes writes, the stability of the truth on earth is dependent on the church. It is owing to the fact that the church is itself founded on a rock, that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it, that no storms of persecution can overthrow it, that the truth is preserved from age to age. Now understand this, lest we get a Roman Catholic mindset here, that the church rests upon the truth rather than the truth rests upon the church. We understand that, but we also understand that we are to guard the truth, the truth of the gospel. We've been entrusted with the truth, and we must protect it. I appreciate the vision of this conference and of the desire for this fellowship. like-minded pastors who have a desire to stand true to the word of God in the day of compromise, in the day when we are seeing assaults against the church, and we are seeing so many pastors give in and go in the direction of what seems to be popular, what seems to draw a crowd, that there is a heartbeat for us to be true to the word of God. Notice the irrelevance of the church, which is seen. Some years ago, Ken Ham came out with a book called Already Gone. And in it, he quotes some statistics from George Barna, not that because he does statistics, it makes him right. And I know that statistics can be skewed in a variety of ways. But I do think that some of these things resonated in some things that we have all witnessed and seen. And we are not only just seeing this in statistical data, we are seeing this as we are seeing churches in our community. Just two weeks ago, A sign went up out in front of the church just down the road from us. It is a Baptist church. It's a Southern Baptist church. They've been struggling for some years. And they have a sign out front that says, starting on September the 8th, a new beginning at our church, at Life Community Church. We are seeing it, whether it be down the road or on statistical formulas, we are seeing churches become less and less relevant. A majority of 20-something, 61%, Barna says, of today's young adults had been churched at one point during their teen years, but are now spiritually disengaged, meaning that they're not actively attending church, reading the Bible, or praying. Here's the sad reality in the thrust of his book that he wrote a few years ago. This is Ken Ham's book, is that two-thirds of the young people that are in church today will be gone tomorrow. And the doubts didn't come when they went to college. The doubt started primarily in their late elementary and junior high years and was seen in their high school and college years. And basically the church is becoming less and less relevant. We are having less and less answers to the problems that folks are facing, young people are facing today. And basically the church has no need in today's society or fills no void in today's society. He goes on to say as he has this interview with 22,000 adults and 2,000 teenagers and 25 separate surveys. He talks about the unquestionably quantified, the seriousness of the situation. Six out of 10 20-somethings who were involved in a church during their teen years are already gone. Despite strong levels of spiritual activity during the teen years, most 20-somethings disengaged from active participation in the Christian faith during their young adult years and often beyond that. We are one generation away from the evaporation of church as we know it. what's happening what's happening is is that two-thirds of teens brought up in church will leave the church have you not seen it in your church have you not seen a strong young maybe a young people's department you have Sunday school the kids are there mom and dad bring them and and you see even in the teenage years you're seeing perhaps less of the number of people that were in Sunday school in the elementary age, then they're coming to the teen department, and then they hit that magical number called 18, and they graduate from high school, and I realize that some go off to college in various places, but we don't see them come back. And there's this great gap between the youth departments and the folks who are in our church. And it seems that all of those who are in the beginning stages of their adult years and those who are having the early years of their family and getting married and so forth, there seems to be almost a 20 year gap between what we should have in church and what we have in church. Now, why is this happening? Well, over the past centuries, we have seen spiritual highs and lows in church history. Churches and denominations that were instrumental in our early nationhood have now become nothing more than historical relics. Brother Stringer mentioned about Brother Ford Porter's pulling out of the American Baptist Convention. You know, there was a day that the American Baptist Convention was a solid organization. It was a gathering of churches that were doing great things early in our country. But how apostasy affects churches over time. You could go to some of the churches that were instrumental in some of the early revivals in our nation's history, and you can go there now, and if they still stand, they're nothing more than relics of the past. They're there, they have a building, they're made out of stone, they might have a cornerstone, but the reality of the dynamic of what made that church great, what made that church used of God, is now history. How do once vibrant churches go from centers of evangelistic fervor to fossils of evangelistic indifference? How do churches drift from theological orthodoxy into relics of the past? Look at our own churches. Look at churches like yours and mine where we have seen God do things in the past, but it seems that many times we're talking about back in the day. We're talking about yesteryear or sad to say yesterdecade. Churches are no longer on fire. Most of us have to point back to years ago when things were happening. Now we sit on Sunday and preach to people waiting for the rapture or the hearse. And sad to say, many in our ranks have given up hope of reaching the world or even saving America. They are tired, drained of energy and finances, having invested in various solutions of the past that have had various dismal degrees of success. So what do we do? This is where we are in America. We have found that we are empty and that we are hollow and that we are shallow and that it seems to be nothing more than a facade of hoopla, but there's no real depth or no real substance. So we look around and we say, aha, let's go this way. Let's try some pragmatic methods because surely that will bring about the results that we're looking for. Other churches have looked at their children, and the grandchildren have turned away from their fundamental roots and regulations, and they've been grieved to the point of looking for a feasible solution to get them back into church. I once heard that any problem I faced in the ministry could be solved by soul winning. If you need money, go lead a rich man to Christ, teach him to tithe. If you need a Sunday school teacher, a deacon, or some other church worker, go get someone saved, baptize, put them to work. Of course, if you need a deacon, they don't even have to be saved. But you go out and you try to reach them. And unfortunately, this often results in a pragmatic attempt to reach the lost. And we have sold out for worldly pragmatism. We have gone through means and methods that are cheap substitutes for real evangelism. We have gone to unchurched Harry and Sally to find out what it would take to get them back into church or into church in the first place. And thus, there has been an embracing of today's music and today's culture and today's dress and today's methods to bring them to church and to evangelize them. Some who haven't, they haven't gone the worldly route of pragmatism. They've gone the material route of pragmatism. Even in our own ranks, those who've rejected the worldly pragmatism have embraced the pragmatism of gimmicks and promotions to bring them in. All of the embracing of today's church marketing and the business CEO model of church growth. It's man's attempt at reaching evangelizing and discipling people his way through the energy of the flesh. There has to be a rejection of the pragmatism. Some have sought to be relevant, not through pragmatic methods, but through political correctness. We are now being told to not preach on judgment. Don't preach on sin. It will wound their self-esteem. Churches have resorted to seeking approval and acceptance from godless humanism. We have watered down our preaching against sin about salvation through Jesus Christ alone and other moral issues in order to be loved by those who hate our God. Shame on us. Shame on us for our compromise. Shame on us for our pragmatism. Shame on us for our desire to get relevant and thus become more irrelevant. You see the relevance of the church is not something that is sought through pragmatic methods and means. It is something that is supernatural. Look at verse 16. It says, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. Now it goes on to give us a one verse paraphrase of the greatness of the gospel, which is Jesus Christ and who he is and what he did for us. But the mystery that God revealed to us in the gospel is in order to make us godly. And that mystery is great. It's a mystery because that which has so long been kept hidden from the world was a subject of the deepest importance and God has revealed it to us. But I want you to know he didn't reveal it to us through Hollywood. He didn't reveal it to us through a rock concert. He didn't reveal it to us through the business market model. It is found in the person of Jesus Christ in the dynamics of God's Holy Word. It can't be quantified by a marketing scheme or substituted by human manipulation. It is supernatural. It is something that only God can do. It is God's life. It is Christ's life working in and through His church. And what we do is we have left the pillaring ground of the truth and we've walked away to follow after shadows and all kinds of shenanigans of mankind. And we have gone after them to try to find some kind of relevance, to find some kind of identity, to find our importance in the world. And we have forsaken the supernatural nature of what makes the church a mystery of godliness. The reason we're dead is because of an absence of life, Christ's life. Seeking to maintain an evangelistic outreach but bypassing the revival route is to put makeup on a corpse. Have you ever gone to the funeral home and you see the folks stretched out there in the casket and you walk by and if you hear one cliche, you hear this more than anything else, Oh, they look so natural. They don't look natural, they look dead. lays around nobody does and what we're trying to do is put makeup on the corpse of what should be a living vibrant church and instead what we have is something that people come by and they'll visit our church and they'll sit through a service and they'll shake your hand on the way out and they'll say oh that was such a nice service pastor it seems so natural When it makes you go over to your prayer closet and weep and beg God, I need something supernatural going on in my church. I need something supernatural. Listen, if the world is going to be reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ through his local church, then we're going to have to have God at work in our church. This world's in need of life. Not the plastic kind that seems real but upon closer scrutiny offers no more hope than what they can find in a beer bottle or a drug needle or some sensual relationship or material things or the accolades of men. My burden is for us as God's people, as pastors in God's churches. we would lead in a pursuit of God's reviving presence in our lives that results in a delighting in him. Listen to what Psalm says in chapter 85 and verse six, it says, wilt thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee? You see, revival is rejoicing in God. It is finding the life that is in Him. It is experiencing, as James Alexander Stewart said, the powerful presence of the majestic Christ, known and felt in all His beauty and glory. It's God's way for us to depend on Him to accomplish His work. You see, it was never God's intention for us to do His work for Him, but instead allow Him to do His work through us. One author in addressing the mighty power that was evidenced in the early church in Jerusalem wrote this, he said, the need today is for an authentication of God, of the supernatural, of the spiritual, of the eternal, and this can only be answered by God graciously hearing our cry and shedding forth again his spirit upon us and filling us as he kept filling the early church. What is needed is some mighty demonstration of the power of God. Isn't that what you need in your church? Isn't that what I need in my church? What we need is a revival of the people in our churches. That we would get down on our knees and become reacquainted with God. I'm afraid that we have perfected the organizational structure of how a church is supposed to be run. We've gone to enough church growth seminars. We've gotten the methodology down. We know exactly how we're supposed to run it, what color card. Well, we don't even use cards anymore. We use computers and we walk around with all of our electronic records and we've gone to the legal seminars. We found out how to make sure that our kids are protected and all those things are good and proper and have their role. But I'll tell you what, my friend, if we don't have the power of God, we might as well just shut the thing down. I believe that a church can still be built and can still thrive in a world of compromise and worldliness. I further believe that this work is done by the supernatural power of God's Holy Spirit. It is not something that is not the eloquence of the pastor. It is not the organization of the programs. It is not the beauty of our buildings. It is God. And what we need is God. And what we've tried to do is do it without God. No wonder we're failing miserably. We need to depend upon God and his grace continually and humbly obey his word. I want you to notice also, as you look at this passage, that the relevance of the church is supernatural, but I want you to notice that it is scriptural. Barnan, his survey discovered that those who've left church fall into one of two categories. Group one believes that the Bible is irrelevant. Group two believes that the church is irrelevant. This attitude of irrelevance towards the Bible and the church should cause us to hang our head in shame. Let me ask you a question. Has the Bible lost its power? Is the church God's institution for the propagation of the gospel? Then we have failed the Bible and the Lord in our church. How do we reclaim relevance in a day of apostasy? Go back to verse 15, notice what it says. But if I have tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God. Behaving yourself is a concluding statement summarizing the previous 14 verses that lay out the qualifications of those in leadership in the church. If the church, if your church, if my church is going to be relevant, then we must return to the source of our relevance, that which makes the church the pillar and ground of the truth, the word of God in authentic Christianity. Church relevance, you see, is based on biblical authority. The Bible is authoritative and fully trustworthy because it's divinely inspired. Forever, oh Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. It's not up for debate. I realize that there are folks who like to make money and so they republish Bibles at different color covers and different languages and update it regularly so that they'll keep us going back to their stores. I understand that, but you know what? The fact of the matter is, is that what we have done is we have tried to connect with the people instead of getting the people to connect with God. We don't need to change the Bible to make it relevant. The Bible is relevant. It's God's word. People need to get back in touch with God and his word. Because the Bible is inspired and inerrant and infallible, it is therefore authoritative and demands our obedience. One writer said this, he said, men try to compromise the truthfulness of the Bible so that they might also compromise its authority over them. Because statements that are not absolutely true and reliable could not be absolutely authoritative. And you know what? Here's the sad thing. We have seen the evangelicals and we have seen the compromisers. We have seen them take and try to twist and change and reinvent God's Word to make it fit. But what's really sad is to see our kind of churches, doing the exact same thing now. What we condemned 20 and 30 years ago, what we said we would never do, as one brother said earlier, we are now seeing our own ranks do it, and debate it, and glorify it, and quantify it on their blogs. God's Word demands and deserves absolute and sole authority over the life of the child of God. Everything and everyone else falls short, but God's authoritative Word stands. It stands above men and it stands above institutions. It stands above your logic. It stands because it's God's Word. Now, I don't know that I have to convince you of that this afternoon because I understand the crowd I'm speaking to, but let me ask you a question. Are we preaching the authority? Are we using our churches and our ministries and our time to do other things rather than preach the authority? You know, there used to be a time that Sunday school was about the word of God. Unfortunately, sometimes we can find ourselves in order to get the kids to come back, in order to keep everything happy. And listen, I'm not against coffee. I think every God-fearing Baptist ought to drink coffee. I believe it is in the 67th book of the Bible. But the fact is, is that we can get so caught up in coffee and donuts and fellowship and the importance of making people feel welcome in our church, we only have 15 minutes to try to give our lesson. Something wrong with that. We ought to be, we ought to be using the time. Listen, think about how much time the average person sits in front of a television set in America, watching about 35 hours a week. You take a child. They're going to sit in the front of a, of a public school teacher, most likely, and they will sit there for 30 to 35 hours a week. And they will listen to that kind of information. And we at best get four hours a week. Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and that's if they're dedicated folks and they come all the time. And then we spend half our time playing games? We need to be preaching the authority. You say, well, my quarterly doesn't really deal with all that. Listen, I'm not against quarterlies, but I'll tell you, you better preach the Bible and not preach a quarterly. You better preach the Bible and don't preach a book. You better preach the Bible and don't preach your opinions. Are we answering the issues of life with scriptural answers? Do we give folks the answers from God's word? Listen, they're facing trials and troubles. I pastor a church I was talking with, brother, and I just forgot his name, but from Frankfurt. Yes, Brother Jones. I should remember a name like that, Brother Jones. But we were just talking about our churches and so forth. I pastor a blue collar church. Most of the folks in our church work at the steel mills. And they're going through tough times. They got financial issues, and they've got marital issues, and they've got problems with a variety of different temptations of worldliness and carnality, and they need to know Bible answers. They don't need Dr. Phil answers. They don't need Oprah answers. They need Bible answers. We need to be able to go to the word of God and say, listen, this is what the Bible says in regards to what your trouble and what your struggle is. And there is a Bible answer to the problems of mankind. Do you believe that? Then let us give them Bible answers. Are we preaching the authority? Let me ask you another question. Are you preaching with authority? Are we Brother, I appreciate what you said earlier about sharing. I don't share from the pulpit. I preach from the pulpit. You know, sometimes I realized in a politically correct society, we don't want to be offensive. And so we want to, can I share this with you? You know, that's not what Paul said on Mars Hill, Acts chapter 17. He declared the word of God. You see, preaching is to, is to declare like a Herald. I am not giving you my opinion. I'm giving you a message from on high. God said this, you either accept it or deal with the consequences. We need to preach with authority. We need to present the Bible as a book, as God's authoritative word, and not present it as a book that is open to private interpretations. The Bible is clear, it is plain, it is obvious, and we are to be good, yes, good stewards as far as make sure that we exegete the passage and make sure that we deliver it properly and so forth. I understand that, I believe that, and we must do it so that we are preaching the word. And then we need to preach the whole authority. One of the core problems behind the exodus of adults of church is that we've only been teaching half the truth. We tell them the gospel. We tell them that Jesus loves them. But we don't give them the rest of the Bible. I appreciate what Paul did with the Ephesian elders. He said in Acts 20 and verse 27, For I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. All the counsel of God is what he preached. The authority of the scriptures is the foundation, and if it's not protected, everything else will crumble. And it's a behooving upon each of us as pastors that we are protecting the word of God, that we are more than just theological fundamentalists, but that we are cultural fundamentalists, and that we protect and we stay true to the whole word of God. Church relevance is based upon Biblical authority, it's also based upon biblical apologetics. It's a great need for practical and relevant apologetics teachings for all ages. You can tell I follow some of Barna's statistics a lot. It just gives you a little snapshot picture of what's going on in our nation. Just 4% of Americans have a biblical worldview. 4% of Americans, you say, well, of course not. I mean, you know, a lot of folks there are unsaved. Of course, that'd be a low number. All right, let's talk about born again Christians. Not just people who have a creedal confession of Christianity, but say they've had a born again experience with Jesus Christ, 9%. 9% have a biblical view of the world and the issues that are in the world. No wonder we're in trouble. You want to go back to the greatness of our country? You have to go back to the time when the majority of Americans had a biblical worldview of things. They understood that there was an authority that said, thus shalt thou do and thou shalt not do. God said something and we are to understand and interpret life in light of looking through the lens or the grid of scripture. But here we are looking at less than 10% of Christians have a biblical worldview. Have we been teaching the Bible? Have we been teaching doctrine? Have we taught them the priority of doctrine to define what Christianity is? We go back to a few years ago when they had the promise keepers movement and there was such a desire to tear down the doctrinal walls that separate us. Let me tell you something, folks. If we don't have doctrine, we don't have anything to preach. to define Christianity, to defend Christianity and to disseminate Christianity. We've got to understand the priority of doctrine and that it is profitable. Ephesians four verse 14 says that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and the cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working and the measure of every part, maketh increased by the body unto the edifying of itself in love." That, my friend, is what we need. How is that done? It is done that we are not tossed about to and fro as children. How does that happen? God gave gifts to the church, and what are those pastors and teachers and apostles and prophets supposed to do? They're supposed to preach the Word! Preach doctrine so that we know what's true, so that our people and ground in truth, so that every Jehovah's Witness and every Mormon and every evangelical that walks by doesn't sweep them off their feet and carry them off to some generic label church. As Christians, we need to know. We need to know Christian doctrine. As we are informed and indoctrinated, it affects our conduct and our character. Someone said men act according to what they really believe, not according to what they merely pretend to believe. Proper doctrinal teaching and preaching ought not only inform but also inspire us to live a life that is pleasing to God. Now that hinges on a Bible foundation. The authority to which we appeal when we study Bible doctrine is the Bible. Give Bible answers to questions of life. When you sit down in council, open up the word of God and take them to the scriptures to give them a biblical answer. But it has to be more than just a simple matter of opening the Bible. It has to be embraced by faith. If we hear the word of God and if it's not mixed with faith, it is not profitable to those that hear it. That's what Hebrews says. Our study of Bible doctrine is not to convince the skeptics. Our study is to know the God we serve. You don't argue people to Christ. You trust Christ. It's by faith. And what has to happen, listen, I'm going somewhere with this. I might seem like I'm meandering here, but I'm going somewhere with this. If we're going to be relevant in this day, we've got to get back to the Bible and we've got to get back to faith. And what our young people, our next generation are looking is they're looking at mom and dad. They're looking at pastor. They're looking at the youth pastor. They're looking at the deacons and the Sunday school teachers. And they're saying, does your faith live? Does what you say and what you preach and what you tend to believe, does it really work? And will it work in my life? And it's not going to work unless it's embraced by faith on our part. We can get professional. We can get all uptight and have everything just so and make sure that our sermons are perfectly formed and perfectly alliterated and they can be wonderful and people can sit back and be amazed at the wizardry of our words. But if it doesn't change your life, it's not worth a whole lot. It's got to be something that brings about change in the lives of people and it's going to start right here in the pulpit. If it doesn't change my life, what good is the sermon I'm about to preach? Church relevance is based on Bible authority and biblical apologetics, but I want you to come back here to 1 Timothy chapter 3, and I want you to notice lastly, and probably most importantly in the message, is it's based on biblical authenticity. There's a great need for us to live an authentic, biblically-based Christian life as individuals and as a church, so that people will see the reality of Christ in our life. Can I say it this way? Stop the hypocrisy. I'm talking about when we go through the motions, we go through the ritual of being the pastor, of preaching the word, of studying the messages, of making the visits, of going through the course of life, but it's not anything deeper than an exterior surface. first 14 verses are referred to in verse 14. It says, these things write I unto you. They have everything to do with two areas of authenticity that Paul brings up to Timothy. One has to do with our living and one has to do with our leading. You look at these qualifications of a pastor. Some years ago, We were preaching through 1 Timothy and we spent about 20 or so weeks taking one qualification each week and going through that in our church. Boy, is that convicting. I almost quit the ministry after that. But if you're a Christian, if you're truly a follower of Jesus Christ, it's going to affect a lot more than just Sunday morning attendance. because following Christ isn't a hobby. It's not like stamp collecting or fly fishing or building model airplanes. It's a way of life. It's a way of life that makes us different than the world around us. And it's a way of life that requires the development of some spiritual habits. There's got to be authentic living. A.W. Tozer made this comment in one of his books. He says, There is an evil which I have seen under the sun. It is the glaring disparity between theology and practice among professing Christians. So wide is the gulf that separates theory from practice in the church that an inquiring stranger, who chances upon both, would scarcely dream that there was any relation between them. an intelligent observer of our human scene who heard the Sunday morning sermon, and later watched the Sunday afternoon conduct of those who had heard it, would conclude that they had been examining two distinct and contrary religions. It appears that too many Christians want to enjoy the thrill of feeling right, but are not willing to endure the inconveniences of being right. So the divorce between theory and practice becomes permanent in fact, though in word the union is declared to be eternal. Truth sits forsaken and grieves till her professed followers come home for a brief visit, but she sees them depart again when the bills become due. Authentic living. You know, it's easy for me as a pastor to preach how souls need to be saved. But when's the last time you lent a soul to Christ? We preach about faith and trusting God, and when's the last time that we trusted God? We can get secure in our parsnages and we can get secure in our salaries and we can get comfortable with the lifestyle that we have and meet up with people who in this downturn economically, maybe they were hurt, but our paycheck is fine. And so we tell them to trust God, but we don't trust God. We get comfort where we are. We lower our vision so that we don't dream big. We don't have a, what he preached on this morning or earlier this afternoon, I mean, I'm sitting there thinking about three churches that changed the world, and I'm thinking to myself, wow, do I want to go through that hassle? Or would I rather just sit in my comfortable place in Valparaiso, and just pastor my little flock, and be thankful for what God's doing, and just, you know, I want to make a ripple in the community, but I don't want to shake it up too much, it might be too much work. Do I even believe that God could do something to change my community? I appreciate the re-seed Chicago and the re-seed to Chicago that this church has undertaken to try to change a city of three million people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. One little old church in the middle of Chicago. I mean, come on, give me a break. This is Chicago. Do you know who runs the politics around here? The devil himself. And you sit there and you think to yourself, how in the world can one little old church in the middle of Chicago make a difference? Because there is a pastor and a church with a vision of what God could do. And willing to step out by faith and believe God to do great and mighty things. I know they're not excited about this court case. I wouldn't be if it was me either. But you know what? God's using this church. And God wants to use my church. And God wants to use your church. God is not a respecter of persons. You say, well, that's Brother Stringer. You know, he's one of those guys. He just, you know, he's into all the politics, knows all that history and stuff. I mean, yeah, God could use him because, no, God can use you and me just like he can use him. He's nothing special. The truth is, the truth is, is that none of us deserves to be in a pulpit. None of us deserves to be in the ministry. God is faithful who has put us into the ministry. God is good. And as we go about serving our great God, may we serve Him with authenticity. If you're going to be a preacher, if you're going to hold forth the Word of God, then don't be ashamed of the book, and don't be ashamed of what God says, and don't be ashamed that God is holy. Notice, as you look at these qualifications of a pastor, Not only deals with his living, but it also deals with his leading. Obviously, his to lead by example, but it has to do with the fact that we teach by our example and by our words, and that's understood. We teach all the time. Even when we don't intend to teach, we teach. So it's important that we saturate ourselves in the word and the ways of God so that we teach what is right. God's word is what we need to teach to others, especially the next generation. You got some kids sitting down here on the second row. We've tried to keep them awake. They've done good. But you know, they look at people like me standing behind a pulpit or him standing behind a pulpit or him standing behind a pulpit. Remember what you felt like as a kid or as a new convert when you first sat in church and you saw somebody up there with a Bible in a suit and you thought, wow, they must have a red phone right there in the pulpit. direct line to heaven. And you thought there was almost something a little bit above human about them that made them special. Then you got in the ministry and you found out it was still just you. And you're like, where is that red phone? I need something special on Sunday. I need something special on Wednesday. And I'm just coming up and all I got is the Bible. My friend, all you need is the Bible. and the presence of God's Spirit. That's the only tools we have. But it's the only tools that the apostles needed to turn the world upside down in their generation. And it's the only tools that we need. You say, but our church doesn't have a website. You don't need a website. Well, our church doesn't have fancy buildings. You don't need fancy buildings, but we're not organized. You don't have to be organized. You know what you need? You need this precious book and you need God's Holy Spirit at live and at work, not somewhere else, but in your life. There has to come a point in our life when we come before God and we say, God, I don't want to go somewhere where you are. I need you to work right here. God, I need you to do work in my church. Sometimes we run off to these other churches and we go to their conferences and thank God for helpful conferences and preaching conferences, but we go somewhere else and we think, well, God's at work over there. Well, let me tell you something, God can be at work anywhere. And we have got to come on our knees and not come out of that closet until we have the presence of God upon our life and until we're filled with His Spirit and filled with His fire and we go forth in the pulpit on Sunday and that God's blessings are poured out in the midst of our congregation and that some of your congregation may find out on Sunday morning that they got a brand new preacher. one that is filled with the Spirit of God, one who is filled with power from on high, and that God does a great and mighty work in our church, and that souls are saved once again. You know, it used to be that souls got saved on Sundays. It used to be that people would come to church, and you'd say, yeah, but times have changed. But God hasn't changed! And His Word hasn't changed! And so we either believe God or the culture. We either believe God or the church growth books. We either believe God or what Dr. So-and-so says. I choose to believe God. If the church is going to be relevant, then we have got to come back to our source of truth, the local church, the pillar and ground of the truth. You believe that? then let's live like it, then let's lead like it, then let's believe in ourselves. Stop apologizing. We have nothing to apologize for in our beliefs. The stand, the positions are right. Let us go forth by faith and preach with truth and trust God. with everything and watch what God does through his church. Heavenly Father, thank you for our time together. Bless, I pray. Lord, help us, help us. Our churches, we need you. May we be dependent people upon thee, in Jesus' name.