Classic Summer 2020: How To Be A Good Servant Of Christ - [1 Timothy 4]

Great to be here, always thankful for BBC, always thankful to be worshiping with you all, just grateful for the

Lord, or unto the Lord for all that he does and has done. When I was thinking about what to preach on a 20 year anniversary, to show honor to my brother and to show honor to BBC and to your

Lord, I thought of one text and that text is 1 Timothy 4. So if you have a

Bible, I'll invite you to turn to 1 Timothy 4. You may or may not know that there are over a thousand chapters in the

Bible, 1190 some, there's a whole lot to the Bible, but it took me no time at all, just praying and reading a little bit to conclude that 1

Timothy 4 is the passage. 1 Timothy 4 is describing one who is a good servant of Christ Jesus.

And so it's talking about Timothy, he needs to be a good servant of Christ Jesus as a pastor. But I also like 1

Timothy 4 because it starts with Timothy and then it expands to the whole church that he's pastoring.

And so we're here today, yes, to acknowledge a 20 year anniversary for Pastor Mike and you as well, ultimately, obviously to honor the

Lord Jesus Christ for his faithfulness, but he does tell us in his word, this is how one is to be a good servant of Christ Jesus as a pastor, but also by extension as a congregation.

So I hope today brings encouragement. I hope it brings affirmation for what the

Lord has been doing in your midst. I hope it also is a bit of an exhortation to keep going, to be steadfast, to continue to honor the

Lord as has been done. Sound like a plan? Okay, there are 10 points.

Some of them will take a long time because that's what preachers do and I'm an honest preacher. Some of the points will take us literally seconds.

So don't get too worried. You'll be home in time for the game. So it's just how it's gonna be.

I think it'll be more manageable if we have 10 characteristics of a good servant of Christ Jesus.

I wanna warn you, we start on the negative, but after all, I am an ebendroth. So number one characteristic of a good servant of Christ Jesus is that he warns about liars.

He warns about liars. That is where the Apostle Paul starts out. So we will start out there.

If you're gonna be a faithful church, a faithful pastor, you have to be in the warning business. And if you look at verse six with me, you'll see.

If you, Paul says to Timothy, to the rest of us by extension, starting with pastors, if you put these things before the brothers, literally if you lay these things down for them to see, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus.

I love the simplicity. If you lay this down so they can see, you will be a good servant.

Well, the these things refer to the things he's described in the first five verses, and they are in the negative.

So let's go ahead and see these things that need to be laid out. And I know your pastor does this, your elders do this, but let's go ahead and see verses one to five.

Now the spirit expressly says that in the latter times, some will depart from the faith.

The faith, the truth about Christ, the truth about his person, the truth about his work, the truth about all the implications.

Some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

So one of the things the good servant of Christ Jesus has to make sure he lays out before the congregation, before the people, this is what it's gonna be like.

This is what's gonna happen. It's not good. It's not positive. It's negative. And the apostle

Paul is very graphic when he says, they'll be devoting themselves. Interestingly enough, the word devoting there's used in different contexts in the

New Testament. Sometimes it's of a warning, beware. Other times it's used to be alert.

Well, here it's used negatively. They're alert for the bad things.

They're waiting for the wrong things. This is gonna be a trend and pastors need to warn people there's gonna come a time when people are just gonna be waiting.

They're gonna be on the alert for the wrong thing. And he's saying, don't be like that.

Same word is even translated in 1 Timothy 3, 8 talking about deacon qualifications.

It's translated addicted. So the faithful servant of Christ Jesus warns the people, you need to know that there are times when people are addicted to liars.

They love it. And we're gonna see this. The implication is the faithful servant says to you, don't be like that.

But know that that's a trend. You've gotta know that. They're addicted to liars.

It's just amazing. And then he goes on to explain what he means. Look at verses three and four. Who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

But the context would have us to know these people who do these things, and it seems like he's just giving two examples.

But the people who do these things do this in the name of we're godly. If you really want to be spiritual and godly and maybe an advanced kind of Christian, then you are not only gonna do what the

Bible says, you're not only gonna believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect substitutionary work and His life and His death and His resurrection.

Oh no. If you're truly godly, right? Truly spiritual, then you're gonna live a higher kind of life.

It's gospel maybe plus, which is no gospel. If you're really godly, then you're not gonna be married because those are just lower base kinds of things.

Or you're gonna go without certain foods, not for dietary purposes, but because you're gonna show everybody that you are more committed to God than anybody else, and God is gonna be more pleased with you.

And you see how it goes. The apostle Paul says they're liars. That's demonic doctrine.

That's an assault on the cross. That's an assault on the perfect work of Christ. There's no higher life kind of thing because Christ is sufficient.

Christ did it all. You need to rest in Him and we're all equal at the foot of the cross. A faithful, a good servant of Christ Jesus is going to address this issue so that the rest of us don't somehow follow the other addicts with their craziness that actually is not true.

It's demonic doctrine. It's lying doctrine. It's his job.

Literally, here's what I wrote in my notes here. Tons more could be said about this, but not today. Mike is good at this, so listen to him.

I don't wanna try to out -Ebendroth an Ebendroth. So, but when you hear

Pastor Mike criticizing and critiquing, it's because it's a biblical mandate.

It's a priority. And this is kind of weird when we're told by surveys that the number one thing that people look for in a pastor is an open and affirming style.

We like open and affirming in certain contexts and it's appropriate. But if that's all you're getting and you're not getting any warning, then that person is not a good servant of Christ Jesus.

Let's move on to another one. Number two, another characteristic of a good servant of Christ Jesus, he doesn't ignore the spirit.

He doesn't ignore the spirit. How about back to verse one where we read, now the spirit expressly says, so as clear as could be, you can't miss this, expressly says that in the latter times or in latter times, some will depart from the faith.

The spirit couldn't be clear, this is gonna happen. What's crazy is so many supposed servants of Christ Jesus pretend like the spirit didn't ever say anything about this.

The ironic thing is that they're busy blaming the spirit for saying all kinds of other weird things. But if you're really a faithful servant of Christ Jesus, you hear not the secret stuff of the spirit, not the hidden stuff of the spirit supposedly, the express stuff of the spirit.

And what is that? That there will be false teachers who attack the sufficiency of the gospel.

It's as clear as can be. I don't wanna try to get in, we're going rather fast doing a whole chapter and I don't wanna get into the intricacies of it, but good faithful Bible commentators make pretty persuasive arguments that what he's referring to here would be the spirit of Christ.

What he's referring to here is what Jesus said when he was on earth, when he clearly warns like in Matthew chapter 24 about false teachers, false

Christ, Matthew 24, 24, for false Christ and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

Now, I don't know for sure if that's what Paul has in mind here, but regardless, it's as clear as can be that this is reality and God the spirit has said so or the spirit of Christ has said so.

So a faithful pastor, by extension, a faithful church, if they're not warning and they never see a place for a warning, they're either number one, as spiritually dim -witted as possible because it's expressly clear.

It's patently obvious for all to see or radically arrogant because the spirit clearly has said this, but perhaps we think we've got a better way.

No, no. I'm so thankful for the ministry of BBC by the grace of God and your pastor,

Pastor Mike, and the other pastors who surround him because they are in listening distance of the clear words of the spirit.

It's a great thing. They catch the obvious. They're not spiritually deaf.

It's clear. I love it that my brother

Mike doesn't miss the obvious. The obvious is apostasy is real.

False teachers are real. And so if you love the flock, you're gonna help them and not neglect that.

Let's move on to the next one. Number three, another characteristic of a good servant of Christ Jesus is this.

He trains in objective gospel truth. He trains in objective gospel truth.

What I mean by objectives, if sometimes I confuse subjective and objective, which one is it?

The subjective is the experience side of things. And it's true. We have Christian experiences and that's important.

The objective is what is true. And it's true regardless of whether you're involved or not.

It's the historic, it's the outside of you. The gospel is objective.

The work of Christ is objective that Jesus came to earth, born of a virgin as we sang today, and that he lived a perfect life of righteousness on behalf of everyone who would ever believe.

He was raised bodily from the dead. That's objective. Regardless of if anybody did believe or not, that's what he did.

He was raised from the dead. He ascended, all of these kinds of things.

That's objective truth. A faithful servant of Christ, and by extension, a church, they're gonna train in the objective.

The subjective comes, yes, we need to believe in Jesus and experience what he's done for us, but we train in the objective first or we won't have the subjective.

Look with me and you'll see what I mean. Verse six says, if you put these things before the brothers, if you lay these things down for them to see, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus.

Here we go. Being trained in, notice, the words of the faith and the good doctrine that you have followed.

Notice the words, the faith, the good doctrine. Objective, objective, objective.

The words of the faith, if you prefer. This makes my mind go to Jude.

It's Jude three, I think. The once and for all delivered to the saints faith.

It's theologians call it, they refer to the objective body of Christian teaching or doctrine.

The truths, the words of the faith regarding Christ and his work.

Even the good doctrine, it's specific teaching. Specific teaching that's been interpreted rightly and correctly.

And even notice that you have followed. It's not

Pastor Mike saying, well, this is what I've come up with. These are my insights that nobody's ever come up with ever before.

No, because it's objective, it's been given, it's the faith, the doctrine, you follow it.

You don't create it. It exists outside of you. It doesn't exist inside of you and you have to get it out.

It's always existed as far as before we're even here, I should say. To be honest with you, this is what

I thought of first. What I thought of celebrating 20 years of ministry.

Objectivity first. Yeah, committed to the faith, the doctrine.

This says volumes even regarding a church and its specific focus, doesn't it?

What's the church about? Well, it's about a lot of things, but before anything else, it's about the faith.

It's about the doctrine, the teaching regarding the faith, the interpretation of it. And it's one that's been followed.

This is what a church does. This is what a pastor does. This is very narrow, if you will, or that's too negative, right?

Very specific. I also like it because that helps us to know that the pastor shouldn't be a generalist.

Bethlehem Bible Church really shouldn't be involved in just like generic good things out there. There are other people who will do those things and there are lots of great things to be done that other people made in the image of God can be doing.

But what has a local church been called to? What's a faithful servant of Christ Jesus been called to? The faith, the doctrine that's been followed.

That's what we do. I know that Mike says to people sometimes when they ask his opinion about something,

I don't know. And that's what he should be saying.

If you're going to Pastor Mike or any other pastor for advice about everything, it's not a good sign.

It's not a good sign. He's supposed to be expert in, those who lead who are faithful servants are to be expert in the faith.

I like telling people, I have no idea. I don't know. Ask someone who knows, right?

But it's so common for us to think the pastor has to know everything about everything and he's like your life coach.

And if he's going to be that, then he can't be doing what he's supposed to be doing, which is being trained in the faith.

If you say, you know, Pastor Mike, he doesn't really know much about this, that or the other thing. That's a compliment, right?

He's so ignorant when it comes to these issues. Awesome. He shouldn't be a specialist in all things because it makes him a generalist, right?

That's what you can do and benefit from. It provides us with something very narrow, very specific.

Well, we should move on to number four. He avoids the ridiculous. He avoids the ridiculous, at least in church.

We know he doesn't avoid the ridiculous altogether, but verse seven says, have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths.

If that sounds like a slam, I think it is. Higher life,

Christianity, mystic, we've had these special experiences. We go without food unlike other lesser

Christians and we go without marriage unlike other lesser Christians. And so we're super spiritual and you have to come to us.

This is how they talk and it's so intimidating. And the Apostle Paul says, the faithful servant of Christ Jesus avoids those things.

And by the way, they're silly myths. They're ridiculous.

And so the faithful servant of Christ Jesus sees them as that. Anything that's in contest with, anything that's challenging the faith, the doctrine that has been followed, you know what,

I don't care who says it, the faithful servant of Christ Jesus says, that's relegated to the category of silliness, myths, nonsense, ridiculous.

Not only is the faithful servant to be a myth buster, he's to be a myth avoider, right? He doesn't say things like, well, you know, we can learn from all faith traditions.

And so today I'm going to give you a little bit from this faith tradition and a little bit from this faith tradition. And you say, no, it's the faith, the truth regarding Christ.

He paid it all. He did it all. He's sufficient and most excellent and glorious.

We have the faith tradition because it's the one that's been followed. Connection.

It's awesome. Makes me excited. Makes me want to preach. I guess I am preaching. This is fantastic.

And it's encouraging to see, yeah, that's right. He avoids the ridiculous, unless it's to point out the fact that it's a lie.

I don't know, sometimes we get intimidated by people with their myths. They had this kind of experience and they had this pilgrimage and they went to this special place and had this special kind of feeling.

And I'm thinking, I didn't feel that. I haven't been there. I haven't had that kind of experience.

And it becomes intimidating to us sometimes. A faithful servant, a faithful pastor, a faithful church by extension is going to say, that's silly.

What you need is Christ. The one you need is Christ. Number five, he prioritizes the eternal.

He prioritizes the eternal. And we're going to look at seven, eight, nine, and 10 to kind of see where he's really driving at the eternal of all of this.

This is the priority. Look what it says in verse seven. Little ways in there. Rather, not the silly myth stuff, rather train yourself for godliness.

I'm going to pause just for a second there because sometimes this verse is used to launch into silly myths.

Train yourself for godliness. Oh yeah, we take that verse and we run with it. We write books about it and blog posts about it and do podcasts about it.

We're going to train ourselves in godliness. Step one, step two, step three, step four. Where did those come from?

Well, I made these up because of my experiences. And so you got to work real hard and you got to do all these things because these are the principles that I live my life by.

By the way, that goes contrary to the very text we're looking at in the context. Train yourself for godliness.

That verse has been hijacked so many times to teach the exact opposite of the context. Before you know it, we forbid marriage in certain foods because we're training ourselves for godliness.

And you go, what? We keep reading. What does he mean? We train ourselves for godliness.

Here's the thing. Here's what he means. Let's keep reading verse eight. For while bodily training is of some value,

Pastor Mike's life verse. It's true, it's of some value.

But what he's going to do is, you got to look to the eternal, not on the to -dos of the here and now and the going without and that kind of thing.

For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

It's looking to the future. Verse nine, the saying is trustworthy and deserving full acceptance.

For to this end we toil and strive. There's training in the eternal because we have, notice, our hope set on the living

God who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe or specifically of those who believe.

He's looking to the future, to the hope of what is to come. And our efforting is not on the physical, but our efforting is actually on what is to come, looking toward what is to come, the hope that is to come.

And if we do a little bit more work here, and we're going to, we're gonna see that it's actually not so much about us, but it's about our focus on Christ.

What does the training consist of? Here we're supposed to train, but if we go in our context and go back to verse six, a good servant of Christ, Jesus being trained.

Oh, there's our word. He's already explained what he means. Being trained in, here we go, the words of the faith.

That's what it is to discipline yourself for godliness, to be training like that. You're trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.

The training is in the words. The training is in the doctrine. The training is in what has been followed, not the extra stuff.

It's the Christ stuff and the finished work of Christ stuff, if you will. It's not the huge list of do's and don'ts.

In this text, I'm not saying there's no place for do's and don'ts in the list, but in this text, it's not about that. The training is actually gospel training, knowing what this is and knowing the implications, not something nebulous and undefined.

Even look with me, if you would, at 3 .16, going back the chapter before, before we get to this chapter, then we'll move on.

In 3 .16, the Apostle Paul says, "'Great indeed,' we confess, "'is the mystery of godliness.'"

He's already explained this godliness concept, idea, reality.

It's not this hidden, secret, nobody knows about it mystery. No, the mystery of godliness.

Oh, what is that? I want that. Notice. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the

Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

Christ and His work is the mystery of godliness. So what we're pursuing when we discipline ourselves for godliness is not the secret, secret,

I got a secret mysticism. It's not the extra rules and regulations that Pastor Mike or somebody else makes up.

Trained in godliness. What's godliness? Godliness is wrapped up in Christ and the gospel. And we know about it because it's the faith, the doctrine that we've been following.

It's awesome. The first of the year,

Mike tweeted, I like this. You know it's gonna be profound when you're talking about tweeting. He said,

Resolved, I will not stress myself in 2017 to imitate Edward's law -heavy resolutions.

Hashtag gospel. And he got some pushback and flack for that one.

Essentially got called an antinomian. How dare you go after sacred resolutions?

Try harder, do more. Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Interestingly enough, disciplining yourself for the purpose of godliness in the text, in context, is training in the faith.

The doctrine, the interpretation that's been given and the mystery of godliness is not in your efforting.

It's in your looking to Christ. Christ is a great savior.

The greatest thing we can do is not to do something beyond him. What we know is probably like this.

You know, we fill up our thimble every Sunday and then we spill it in the lobby before we even go.

The focus, the discipline, the never moving beyond is the doctrine, the faith.

What we followed is Christ. He's the mystery of godliness. Let's move on to number six.

Fastest point you've ever heard in the history of BBC. Number six, he implores believers to the same.

He implores believers, he begs, he exhorts, he challenges believers to the same. Verse 11, command and teach these things.

Good servant of Christ Jesus is gonna say, this is what you have to do. Let me explain.

Next point, number seven. A faithful servant of Christ Jesus is an atypical, an atypical different kind of example.

He's a different kind of example. Look at verse 12 with me if you would. Let no one despise you for your youth.

Timothy is relatively young. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

Ordinarily, to be a good example, you have to know things, you have to have wisdom, you have to have experienced lots of things.

That's just how it works. This helps us to even stress the objectivity of young Timothy's ministry.

If he's young, he actually doesn't know how a lot of things work. He hasn't lived long enough to have enough gray hair to have wisdom in all these different areas of life.

It's gonna be pretty hard for Timothy to be an example in a general sense to the congregation where many people who are older than he is.

How could he be an example? He's an atypical example. He's an example in this sense.

He's focusing, he's being trained, he's dedicated to the faith, the words of the faith, and the doctrine, the explanation of it, and it's what's been followed.

And if he focuses on that and is expert on that, he actually can be a good example.

He can be an atypical kind of example. Maybe not in everything, but he's in a good example in what he is supposed to do as a pastor.

We should move on to number eight. A good servant of Christ Jesus, make sure you get this one, keeps church boring.

He keeps church boring. You're gonna see it right here. It's what it means in Greek.

Not really, look at verse 13. You'll see what I mean. Until I come, the apostle Paul says, devote yourself, don't waver.

This is what you're gonna do steadfastly. Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, that would be commands and urgings to believe, to repent, to teaching, that would be explaining the faith and the doctrine.

That's what you do. Until I come, just keep doing these things.

Yeah, but what about... No, until I come, steadfastly, unwaveringly, you just keep being devoted to the reading of Scripture, the explanation of Scripture, the exhortation with Scripture.

That's just what you do. That's what church life is. Yeah, but when I was watching TV, one week they've got in Dallas, they've got them coming out in a

Ferrari because that really works for church life. Another, the pastor and his wife in one church, they do a series on intimacy sitting on the end of a bed.

Man, they draw men, they can pay their bills. And on and on and on the list goes.

More pizazz, more excitement, more amazement, smoke and mirrors and all this stuff.

Pastor Timothy, any pastor who's a faithful servant of Christ Jesus, what?

Dedicated, devoted, unwaveringly so. Reading Scripture, explaining

Scripture, exhorting with Scripture. So I like to think until an apostle walks through those doors and there's a guy guarding the door, so we aren't gonna have any come in.

But until an apostle walks in those doors, this is what should be happening. This should be the, this should be blocking and tackling.

This is what happens. And by the way, an apostle is not gonna walk through those doors because you had to see the risen

Christ to be qualified as an apostle. And so it's all about this. I love boring church.

I love, in other words, predictable church. Oh, it might be a different text.

It might be a different kind of emphasis, might be comforting one week, might be convicting another week.

Oh yes, we've got over a thousand chapters in the Bible. But in so many ways, you know what

I mean? It's just basics. This is what we do. This is what we're committed to.

This is the apostolic mandate. And remember, the apostle Paul is an apostle of Christ Jesus.

And so when he writes this letter, he speak, it's a red letter. He's speaking with the same authority as the

Lord Jesus Christ. What would Christ want Bethlehem Bible Church to be doing? Giving attention, not to fad -ianity, fads, but to true

Christianity. It's the faith, it's the reading, it's the explaining. And I hope that affirms you.

I hope you're like, yeah, I want predictable. I want it to be like this. I was talking to a young college student not long ago, and she was moving to a different city.

And she said, pastor, what church do you recommend? And I said, make sure you find a boring church.

She's like, looks at me, okay, no, ready to take notes. And from what

I know, she probably is not a believer. I don't know for sure, but I said, here's what

I mean. She'd been away at college long enough that she liked coming home to be with mom and dad.

Okay, I said, it's kind of like when you come home from college and you don't really wanna go do anything.

You wanted to get out of the house, you wanted to go to college, but now that you've had the experience, you wanna come home and just hang out.

You wanna be there because it's predictable. You know how the meals are gonna go. You know how the conversations are gonna go.

You can relax because you know that this is how home life in your home should be. And it's just an illustration, not a perfect one, but I think about, and I said, that's how church life should be.

When you go to a church and you're gonna go and visit, what should you expect to hear? You should be comfortable when they read the scripture and they explain the scripture and they're pointing you to Christ, the mystery of godliness.

And if it's out of the ordinary and extraordinary, you know it's not right. I'm thankful for BBC and the ministry here that it is an exceptionally boring church.

And next week, I think it's gonna be exceptionally boring. What's gonna happen here next week?

You know what's gonna happen here next week. I'm thankful that if it didn't happen here next week, you wouldn't be here the following week.

Let's move on. Oh no, we can't move on. We're not to the next verse. Verse 14, the temptation might be to do the

Ferrari thing and edge of the bed thing. Probably not for Timothy, but for us. 14, do not neglect the gift you have.

See, if you're doing that other monkey business, you're neglecting the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid hands on you.

You'd be neglecting your God -given gift that had been affirmed. How crazy is that?

And think about how that's what happens when pastors do all the monkey business, all the craziness and all the shenanigans.

They're neglecting the gift that they've been given. They're prostituting their calling.

It doesn't make any sense. What people need, whether they know it or not, is the pastor to be committed to doing what he knows how to do, not all the other stuff that he doesn't even know how to do.

Just as a random cross -reference in my mind, I was thinking about how Christ is referred to in Ephesians chapter two as having immeasurable riches.

Immeasurable spiritual riches are in Christ. I guess it makes me go back to the several points before, and I'm thinking about boring.

If immeasurable spiritual riches are in Christ, you can tell me about Christ week in and week out, week in and week out, week in and week out, chapter in, chapter out.

It's never gonna be boring. Number nine, he never stops practicing.

He never stops practicing. Verse 15, practice these things. Literally keep practicing these things.

Never stop practicing these things. Immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress.

It's continuing, it's constant. I love the way this lays itself out.

You keep practicing. You keep working on this to the point where people will see improvement.

Oh, by the way, you're not doing anything different ever, because it's the same stuff. So there can be progress in the same stuff, because if you just keep devoting yourself to the same things, there's progress in the same things.

It's not, okay, we've got the gospel figured out. And now watch me progress beyond, more, extraordinary.

No, that's not what your pastor has done. That's not what this church has done. I know for certain what it's done is,

Christ is our all in all. Immeasurable riches found in him, the faith, the doctrine that's been followed.

And let's just keep practicing. Let's just keep going deeper. Let's immerse ourselves in these things.

Let's be consumed in these things. Let's give our minds to these things. And it's growing in godliness, true growing in godliness.

Finally, number 10, he is vigilant. He is vigilant.

A church is vigilant. They're going to be a faithful servant of Christ Jesus. Verse 16 says, keep a close watch, there's the vigilance idea, on yourself and on the teaching.

To make it graphic, the same word is used in another context, when people were supposed to be at a certain location, certain geographical location, and they're not to leave.

So when he says, keep close watch, maybe just for effect, that's the right translation, but for effect it could be translated, never leave.

Stay there. Don't move. You know, the idea of, you plant your flag.

Let's bring in our context, the faithful servant of Christ Jesus plants his flag on Mount Zion and never moves.

It's where it's going to stay. Because it's about Christ. Keep close watch.

Keep there. Stay there. Give your mind and attention to these things. And then 16 says, look there with me if you would, persist in this.

This is persist in this vigilance. For by doing so, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

I'm of the opinion that what he means there in the context, in doing this, you will save yourself and your hearers from what we learned about in verses one to five, apostasy.

That thing that Jesus warned about that is a real problem, not make -believe.

If you focus on these things and you never leave this place, figuratively speaking, you'll be safe.

And those who are under your care, they'll be safe too. It's extraordinary. When we think about 20 more years, first of all,

I said to the Abendroth girls last night, in 20 years from now, at the 40 year, I hope you guys live in Florida because it was freezing outside.

I don't really mean that. But in 20 more years, we have to know that it would only be by God's grace that anyone, anyone would be a good servant of Christ Jesus.

All of this is only because of God's sovereign grace. But let's make sure we understand in closing, that's true for 20 days from now.

No, let's make sure we understand 20 minutes from now, 20 seconds from now.

The only way we can enjoy and praise God like we're doing today for God's goodness is through God's goodness.

Take heed, we would say, unless we fall. God is so good and God is so kind, but it's not about us.

And yet it is possible by God's grace to be a good servant of Christ Jesus. But this is how.

May God make it so. Pray with me if you would. Father, thank you so much for Bethlehem Bible Church. And thank you for the deacons here, for the elders here, for those who are on the staff.

I thank you for the body here. I'm thankful for all the men and women and boys and girls that I've gotten to know over the years.

For everyone here, that they might take some ownership in these things, that by the spirit of Christ, there might be faithful ministry that would go on beyond 20 seconds from now.

Indeed, to 20 years and beyond. Indeed, Jesus is a sufficient, wonderful savior who saves mightily and to the end.