Shepherds Conference Update

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Sitting at the Shepherds Conference was neat for many reasons one was Naomi was with the
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Masters Chorale and she got to sing and I thought we had the Masters Chorale here at our own very church and there they are singing to 3 ,500 pastors and leaders and men who want to be encouraged it just was really a joy the only thing that was missing was my friend
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Dave sitting right next to me and Looking over at Dave thinking are those tears coming down from your eyes because I can't see through mine.
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I'm crying for you But it was just neat to see the Masters Chorale and Naomi ministering we did have pastor
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Eric With us for a lot of the meals and other things He is Wes Jameson's pastor, and I've been telling you about the situation down there in Florida So he came to the
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Shepherds Conference. I think he was encouraged We had him out for dinner one night And I just said why don't you tell the guys what happened it was almost like cathartic that he would be able to talk about the policemen coming and Changing the locks on the doors and all these other things just because he'll want to preach the word and so I thought you men
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Really ministered to him Well, so thank you for that Bob Brainerd hung out with us for a while He's the elder at Newtown Bible Church in Connecticut where we got to fill the pulpit for some time
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So that was good to have Bob there, and then I ran into Lou at the Cape from Cape Cod Bible Fellowship I didn't run into Matt the
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Cape, but Lou from the Cape was there and so it's great to just see all these different people
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I Went up to MacArthur He's usually got this whole entourage of security guys all around him
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And and I thought I can't even go say hi to my pastor, and then I thought well That's probably a good idea so the elders have ordered some special security things for me over there at the door
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And so I just went up to John I said John Thank you so much for the forward that you wrote for the book I really appreciate it, and I stuck my hand out to shake him, and he pulled me in and gave me a hug
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I thought you know what I'll never forget that and there's something very powerful in a hug
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And I like it that we're becoming more and more a hugging Church Luke what are you laughing at?
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You laughing at me Luke we did order the mp3 so they'll be floating around here all the different sessions
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So if you didn't attend and you'd like to You can get some of those mp3s for those of you that have not been to the
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Shepherd's Conference tonight And at one sense is for you because I want you to a figure out what happened and be encouraged through these men
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But also I want you to go many of the men who went tonight have set where you have sat and said you know
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I'd like to go some year because I think to a man we would say that it was encouraging thrilling to sing with 3 ,500 men the praises of God it was just I thought
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Lou was gonna have some kind of charismatic experience a few times We were singing the guys who were with me.
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They know what I'm talking about It was just wonderful to sing those great praises of God You'll see the guys all of a sudden out of nowhere get their little cell phones out call up somebody how many guys?
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Opened their cell phone up and And had a song Cross the airwaves it was just wonderful And so what
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I've done is I've asked every man to get up for five six seven eight nine maximum minutes and I'm gonna get the
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Shrek Shepherd crook out for ten minutes or more I just asked them to share something about the conference that they've learned from God's Word How they'd like to implement it here in the local church
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Kim said do you think the guys are nervous, and I said basically in my mind. I hope they are Standing up and getting the pulpit it should be nerve -wracking, but the
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Lord is very gracious and generous and men Thank you for being good examples Thank you for not letting me have to babysit you or get you to the segments and seminars and all that stuff
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It was probably the other way around I probably didn't go to many of them because part of the ministry for me at the conference
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Was just getting together with old friends and professors and trying to encourage and then be encouraged
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So I think you did a great job, and I'm looking forward to seeing how God will use this in your life
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We're gonna go alphabetical So before we call up Bob, let's just pray all right.
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Thank you Lord for tonight and for these men and for their wives Families how you have provided for us to be able to go to the conference and be encouraged how you've kept men like John MacArthur and Steve Lawson and Al Moller faithful and What separates them from some liberal
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Methodist pastor and nothing but your good grace and so we thank you that you and every generation and every
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Corner of the world have men who are faithful and Lord we want to be that kind of church a faithful Church We want to not be a dead church a
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Sardis Church And I pray that you'd use these men these five men Lou Daniel Joey Bernard and Bob To do great things here in New England and in our very own local church a
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God you're very generous to us at this church above and beyond what we are Deserving and so we thank you and we praise you and we say great is thy faithfulness
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Help these men tonight be clear help them to be bold and biblical in Jesus name.
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Amen All right, Bob, all right,
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I am nervous cold sweaty palms, I guess that's a good thing So we're a hugging
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Church now Next steps, holy kisses. Holy kisses for everyone
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All right, um, you know many people came up to me over the last week, you know How is the Shepherd's Conference and you know, of course,
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I shrug my shoulders and you know, I just tell them Same old same old, you know, nothing nothing big.
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Of course not. It was it was unbelievable. It's just an amazing experience All week long we had you know, world -class
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Musical performances. I mean serious. We had classical guitarists and you know, the Masters Chorale was awesome Naomi knows
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Swahili now to get did she tell you that now she knows Swahili at least four or five words
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You know, we heard the Masters Chorale. We just heard great music We had an awesome fellowship people from all over the world all over the
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United States You could Ukraine Spain all parts of Asia I mean we spoke with so many different men again, like pastor said until you hear 3 ,500 or so booming voices, you know just singing, you know, the great hymns of the faith and you know
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That's that's just an encouragement itself. Unfortunately, I had my camera stolen. So yeah, I don't have that on tape any longer
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But it was it was great. It was great just to experience that You know great preaching we had a bunch of seminars that were just very encouraging to our
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Christian walks, you know seminars on prayer and evangelism so many other topics, you know, they were just great things and we also we experienced firsthand the kind of service, you know that biblical preaching and teaching should
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Produce and I think that was one of the biggest things I took away from the conference is just as you walked around campus you know all the people from Grace Community Church that took
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Days off from work a week off from work to come and shine shoes and to serve food and to sweep you know have a dustpan and broom and to clean toilets and Honestly, they were all over campus doing so many
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Even menial tasks, but just doing it with joy Doing it a big smile on their face. I don't think
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I've ever seen people just so happy to be sweeping, you know and greeting and you know
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Just how is it guys? How is everything? I hope I hope your stay is just going great. I hope you're enjoying the church
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I hope you're enjoying the conference, you know, just happy people people willing to serve and so that should be a natural outgrowth
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Of hearing biblical preaching of you know, and that's really a testament to the faithful men Add grace, you know, you know men like John MacArthur who?
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you know, he's been so faithful over the years preaching the word and preaching only the word and You know and again that should be the natural outgrowth so that's one thing
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I really took away from the conference is that you know We should go and see something like that and you know Be ready to bring that bring that home be ready to serve be ready to serve at the drop of the hat.
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Just take The preaching that we hear because we do hear You know same old same old in a sense.
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That's true. We hear great preaching every week We have great faithful men here that you know Really exposit the word and teach us up the whole counsel of God and we should just take that and and run with it in Our works of service.
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I mean that should just be a natural outgrowth of hearing the word week in week out from from faithful men
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So that encouraged me and also challenged me To come back here and to to serve better to better serve the body and to better serve
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God within the body, so That's the first thing is, you know service, you know, let's be ready to serve
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When called upon and let's look for ways to Serve others and I've already started to implement that I think had a few conversations even today, you know, how can
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I help you? What can I do? And so I Attribute that to my experience from last week at the
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Shepherds conference Now as far as pastor Mike he wrote us this week He want us to pick a passage or a topic from the conference that really hit home
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And we were supposed to speak about that but you know picking a passage or a topic or taking a nugget of truth
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From this conference. It's you know, it's like looking into the stars, you know and Looking up into the night sky and trying to pick the brightest star, you know, the most beautiful one
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I mean, what are you gonna talk about? I mean, we learned so much this week. I remember a couple years ago One of the gentlemen equated it to you know, drinking from a fire hose, you know, you're just taking in so much all the seminars
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But I would say this that the conference We didn't learn anything novel or anything new and that's
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I praise God for that You know, that was the whole point of the conference there's nothing new but just hearing God's Word expounded and exposited and and God glorified and lifted up and Pastors and leaders being encouraged the conference did exactly what it was designed to do and that was to encourage pastors to be faithful you know that they don't need to Like we learned this morning they don't have to go and run after results and run after people and run after you know
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No, that's it's not it. You know leave the results to God just be faithful and In preaching the word be faithful in service for laymen exactly be faithful in service
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Whatever you're called on to do do it faithfully do it. Well do it excellent and Do it as to the
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Lord. So, you know the theme of the conference Was Why every true
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Calvinist must affirm biblical ecclesiology ecclesiology being the study of doctrine, you know pertaining to the church, you know how we do church how you know the
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Bible determines how we should do church and Stated that stated positively, you know why we should
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How we should do church or why every true Calvinist must affirm biblical ecclesiology stated negatively John MacArthur threw this right down at the beginning is to affirm biblical ecclesiology.
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We must reject all church -growth theory church -growth ideology secular methods pop psychology all of that and again, just be faithful to the word and You know, why must we reject this methods?
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I think it's obvious If we truly believe, you know what the Bible teaches about a sovereign God, you know
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A God that chooses to elect to save sinners. We have to reject man -made methods if we believe in Jesus Christ, you know in his promise that he came and he was going to build his church and and the church as MacArthur said
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It's not going to be short one soul. We need not worry about that. We need only be faithful that in the end God will do all his his good pleasure, you know, the church will not be short one soul
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So if we believe that about God our sovereign God then To put our faith in any other methodology man -made
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Method or ideology or anything like that? It's just blatant hypocrisy, you know to say that we trust the sovereign
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God yet Try to do things our own way You know again, that's just blatant hypocrisy.
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So everything just flowed from that I could tell you I don't want to go much over my five minutes so I could tell you about all the great preachers we heard from Al Mohler and and Steve Lawson just Preaching about the greatness of God's Word and you know preaching from Hebrews 4 12 and 13 how the word is a double -edged sword
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It's our best weapon our only weapon and our invincible weapon, you know to to evangelize to teach to preach whatever that's our invincible weapon
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I could tell you all about them, but You know, there's just too much. There's just too much to take one thing one
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Passage that we learned or one passage that we studied and just tell you how great it was all great. It was all great
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I just came back so encouraged and I hope all the pastors and leaders also came back encouraged and And I would say to you guys who how many guys haven't gone?
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Alright, so I've got my eyes out on you guys. So for the rest of this year, I'm gonna be on it guys
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Go I encourage you to go. I should have gone three years ago You know when
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I first got here, I remember pastor Mike approached me. Oh, you know, you've got this conference. You should definitely go Work and money and blah blah blah go just go make the sacrifices do what you have to do start saving now start preparing now and Go because it's it's just a huge encouragement and you'll be so blessed and you know come back here again ready to serve and and energized and again ready to You know serve
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God better in not only in Insurance, but also in you know in your own personal life again. We learned about prayer
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Evangelism, you know, you'll be a better father better better husband, whatever, you know, it's it's you'll be blessed and encouraged and energized to just Bring glory to God God in all those areas your life.
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So Again, I don't want to go over my five minutes. I have about three four pages of notes, but You know, it's all
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I really want to say is just encourage you guys to go Have a great time of fellowship with other men from the church and also meet, you know, so many great men from again all over the world really so It's really all
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I have to say again. I got my eyes on you guys for the rest of this year. All right. Thank you
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Good evening well, if I could Give you a picture of I think what my life was or my spiritual church life before expository preaching
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It's like a dripping. It's like a dripping faucet. I was trying to get the word and I Would say after I was introduced to expository preaching and have now come to love it and cherish it
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It's like a it is like fire hose and it's just such a different When you when you come to that understanding of hearing scripture in its context and Exposited it's just a wonderful experience and I just I'm so grateful for this church
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I remember coming in sitting down listening to the hymns here and saying wow. I've found my home here and So it's just been a pleasure to grow in this church
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I've been here for about 14 months now and so this Shepherds Conference was Also quite an experience and I just like Bob said it's like by the end of it
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You feel like you're getting hit by a fire hose and you've had enough and you pretty much by the last sessions you're just pooped out and you're
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I don't think I took notes for the last two sessions because I was just Hit so hard but one of the resounding themes of the
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Shepherds Conference this year was contextualization and How many of you guys have heard that word before It's kind of the emerging word that's coming into play there's two churches a church named
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Mars Hill in Michigan and One of the sermons by Phil Johnson was about contextualization and was about act 17 and act 17 is a verse that's used by a lot of The emerging church to kind of say, you know, we need to get to know our culture.
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We need to Emerge we need to sit down, you know build a coffee shop sit down. Let's chat about God and Phil Johnson really brought out this scripture in a way that I I used to think of act 17 just kind of in the same way
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The emerging church did it's like a you know way to we relate to people and that's not what Paul did at all
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Let me just begin here with a quote by Nathan booze and booze and his rights in practice contextualizers a simulate as much worldliness as possible an attempt in an attempt to earn
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The world's esteem because the idea is that if the world likes us They will also like our
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Jesus So act 17 Mars Hill. It's a favorite passage of the postmodern movement right now, and it's
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Paul in Athens and he is preaching to the people of Athens and just to bring it into context the reason he's in Athens is because he's
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Pretty much getting pushed out of Berea for preaching So that's kind of bringing us to Athens the disciples are like you need to you need to get out of here
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The Jews are coming in there. They're upset if we look at verse 17 but when the
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Jews of Thessalonica found out that the Word of God had been proclaimed by Paul and Berea also
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They came there as well agitating and stirring up the crowds so then we see we see
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Paul in Athens and And So first he was sent there for his for his own safety and we see
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Straight away Paul on a mission when he gets to Athens and he is investigating
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He's investigating the people there and he's investigating how he's going to initiate his ministry We see in verse 16 now
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Paul Now why Paul was waiting for them at Athens his spirit was provoked within him
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As he was observing the city full of idols So that word provoked
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Actually means Agitated it's an intense word and he was provoked within his spirit when he saw all these idols and what the
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Athenians were worshiping So we see Paul investigating this and kind of getting ready to launch his ministry and in verse 17
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He began he begins reasoning with the Athenians and that word reasoning is often used by the emerging church like that he was reasoning he was sitting down and drinking coffee and you know trying to get these people to come to his side, but this is actually a term used for preaching or boldly asserting what was the truth and so we don't see
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Paul kind of Doing what the emerging church would would say he was
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So he confronted false beliefs is what those terms imply he was not accommodating them
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So he was countercultural he was out of step with the human wisdom of that time as well
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And that's another thing the emerging church would have you think that we're using this time you know the wisdom that we have in this error to bring somebody to Christ and so this
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Message that Paul was bringing was not kind of of the Greek culture time It was it was alien and we see that in verse 18
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And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him
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Some were saying what would this idol bowler wish to say others? He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching
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Jesus and the resurrection So Paul's referred to as an idle babbler, so this guy's a funky not cool guy and That word idle babbler is also referred to as seed picker
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The philosophers viewed Paul as an amateur philosopher his ideas were not his own, but they were only picked among prevailing philosophies and Constructed no depth so he was kind of an idiot
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I mean compared to the Greeks didn't look at him and say wow he's a really neat guy And that kind of made me think of 1st
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Corinthians 1 18 what a pastor Mike preached on you know for the word Of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to those who are being saved is the power of God and it is
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Gonna be moronic and stupid when we proclaim the truths of the gospel. They're not they're not gonna be popular and they're
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I have a roommate that I Try to minister to and it's just does not make sense to him
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It is so stupid to him and I sometimes want to kind of shift my message to make it sound a little bit more
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Funky and cool, and I don't think that's that's not the way it should be done. That's not the way Paul did it here
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If we look in the next verses actually let's skip forward to verse 24 through 27
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We we see that Paul does quite the opposite He does not dialogue and discuss
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The issues but rather he declares them to be true verse 24
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The God who made the world and all things in it since he is the Lord of heaven and earth
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Does not dwell in temples made with hands nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth
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Having determined their appointed times and boundaries of their habitation That they would seek
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God if perhaps they might grope for him and find him though. He is not far from each of us
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So we see a direct statement from Paul here. That's not kind of Asking for a discussion but rather declaring that God is sovereign and That he transcends.
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He's a transcending God. We don't see Now what the emergence would have us believe so all of what is said is flatly contradicted what the pull what the philosophers were addressing this
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This statement that God is the one and only true. God was against all Athenian religion
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It had you know was against counter cultural so to say So he he declares the truth of God in a bold and confident fashion verse 29 through 30
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Being then children of God we ought not to think of that We ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone an image formed by the art and thought of man
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Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance. God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent
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Because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness Through a man whom he has appointed having furnished proof to all men
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Raising him from the dead so Paul steps into preaching the resurrection and Life of Christ and calling people to repentance
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Again Paul is directly confronting the worldview of the philosophers Now this is tantamount
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This is this was tantamount to a bold and wholesale dismissal of every aspect of Greek religion
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Further we we don't see Paul trying to win the esteem of the people this is probably infuriating a lot of the
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Greeks that he's speaking to and we see that in the response because many mocked a
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Few said hey, we'll come back and listen to you again and just a handful of people actually followed. So just to Show you that that is the power of the cross if we go back to Go back to first Corinthians and it's it's foolishness to men people men
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Could care less and it doesn't make sense except if God Allows them to understand it and so in closing
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We see in verses 33 and 34 what the response is We see that a handful believed but most mocked
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So a postmodern viewer this this would be unsuccessful for The postmodern preacher they would say wow, you really are not a good preacher
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Paul You should kind of step down and maybe think of doing something else with the rest of your life But to God this was success because this was preaching the gospel
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However Unpopular it might have been I just want to close with a quote. This is in regard to Phil Johnson's sermon and Describing verses 33 and 34.
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This passage is an example of how of what faithful ministry looks like it doesn't cower before The opposition or waiver from the truth
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It doesn't shift and change its content to fit the felt needs of the audience It has one theme and that is
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Christ in his death and resurrection And it has one strategy to unpack the reality of Christ and his death and resurrection
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As clearly clearly as possible So that was the
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Shepherds Conference for me quite an experience. I Would certainly go back. It's just great to see all the men that come out to that and again the singing and being able to sit down with guys from Ukraine for lunch guys from Africa a guy that was in Thailand.
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It was a missionary there Probably have you know, seven or eight business cards from just men all across across the country.
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So it was quite a Pleasure and I counted a privilege to have gone. So, thank you
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Good evening tonight,
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I would like to I'd like to share with you some of my Experiences at the
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Shepherds Conference and also just to share with you some of the lessons that I learned The conference basically started
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Wednesday and run through Friday. It's pretty much all day wake up at Six o 'clock in the morning and wouldn't be back at the hotel till about 11
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There were eight general sessions where about 3 ,000 or so men gathered and we worship together and we heard from the keynote speakers and Then there were about four or five breakout sessions where we went to different rooms and different topics and different pastors and elders and professors at the seminary
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That spoke as I was reflecting this week on the conference.
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I thought I'd come up with a personal, excuse me personal theme that for me
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Encapsulated the lessons that I learned And for me that theme would be the centrality of the
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Word of God The centrality of the Word of God there are several aspects of that theme based on the different messages
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Based on the preaching and the teaching That I'll briefly talk about on one particular one that I'll focus on later on so the first aspect of that theme the centrality of the
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Word of God would be the centrality of the Word of God in building the church
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And the first session John MacArthur preached on Acts 2 3 & 4 and he talked about how the church in Jerusalem grew after the after day of Pentecost The second aspect of that theme would be the centrality of the
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Word of God in the ministries of the church one of the sessions I attended was titled thinking biblically a philosophy of ministry built on scripture a
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Third aspect of that theme would be the centrality of the Word of God in preaching dr.
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Mohler Preached on the necessity of expository preaching from the book of Nehemiah and Steve Lawson whom we had a couple months ago preached on Hebrews chapter 4 on the preachers invincible weapon referring to the
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Word of God The fifth aspect of that theme would be the centrality of the
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Word of God understanding and proclaiming the gospel as Joey talked about Phil Johnson preached on Act 17 and talked about how
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Paul engaged the Greek culture of his day with a gospel message and The last aspect of that theme that I'd like to focus on would be the centrality of the
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Word of God in personal living During one of the general sessions
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Tom Pennington Exposited from Psalm chapter 1 which is where I'd like for us to turn this evening and I will
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Read from the New King James NASB rather Sam Psalm chapter 1
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How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked? No stand in the path of sinners.
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No sit in the seat of scoffers But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night
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He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit and season and its leaf does not wither and In whatever he does he prospers
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The wicked are not so but they are like chaff which the wind drives away Therefore the wicked will not stand in judgment
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Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous for the Lord knows the way of the righteous
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But the way of the wicked will perish This song basically it contrasts two ways the righteous way and the wicked way
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During his message Tom Pennington characterized what the foundational commitments of those on the righteous path are and they can be summarized basically in two points a
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Man a woman in the righteous way one abandons every human way and two embraces
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God's way in the first verse of that chapter it says how blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked and Basically, he described it
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He described it as thinking or believing in the philosophies and methodologies of our day and age which one would say humanism pluralism secularism
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Naturalism post -modernism and all the other isms that you can come up with Later on in that verse it says
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Nor stand in the path of sinners and he described this as living like the world with predictable patterns of sinful behavior in Proverbs 4 15
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Proverbs 4 14 and 15 it reads Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not proceed in the way of evil men
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Avoid it do not pass by it turn away from it and pass on and going back to Psalm 1 later on.
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He says He does not walk in the counsel of the wicked to he does not stand in the path of sinners three he does not sit in the seat of scoffers and He said this literally would mean belonging or being connected
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To the world in such a way that we become almost part and parcel of them and he wasn't really ascribing
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Separating ourselves from the world in a sense that we don't connect with them, which would be I guess unbiblical and impractical
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But as as it says in Matthew 5 Being those lights on the hill where we live such such a life such that unbelievers would see us and praise our
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Father in heaven In Psalm 26 In Psalm 26 verse 4 and 5 the psalmist the psalmist puts it this way.
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I Do not sit with deceitful men nor will I go with pretenders? I hate the assembly of evildoers and I will not sit with the wicked
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I shall wash my hands in innocence and I will go about your altar O Lord that I will proclaim the voice of thanksgiving and declare all your wonders
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So that was the first point abandoning every human way and the second point embracing God's way verse 2 of Psalm 1 reads
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But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law. He meditates day and night one of the points that he made that actually hit me quite hard was a righteous man is characterized by how he responds to God's Word and The first aspect of that response has to do with a delighting in the
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Word of God and he described it as taking pleasure in or desiring Longing for or craving and the
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Psalms are pretty much replete with that kind of language As David talks about how he loves the
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Word of God and how he desires for the Word of God Now he desires to be conformed to the Word of God in Psalm 119 verse 47
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It says I shall delight in your commandments Which I love and I shall lift up my hands to your commandments
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Which I love and I will meditate on your statues and the second aspect has to do with meditation on the word he said he described meditation as reflecting or Thinking or having an internal discussion with oneself concerning the scriptures
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With the with two goals one to have a clear and better understanding of the meaning of the text and to Planning on how to apply the scriptures to our own lives
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In Joshua chapter 1 verse 8 the Lord commanded Joshua Saying the book of the law which the book of the law shall not depart from your mouth
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But you shall meditate on it day and night So that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it and that you will make and Then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success
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One of the questions Tom asked the man was Would this be what characterizes your attitude towards God's Word Do you desire do you love it do you take pleasure in it?
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Do you long and crave for it? Do you meditate on it? and so that was actually
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One at least one of the key messages for me that I Took away and had to think more about So in conclusion, it was was just a great experience being at the conference and and seeing firsthand the centrality of the
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Word of God both in in preaching and in the service of the Saints at the church as as Bob already described this
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Everybody was just so excited to see you and to greet you and and to serve you and polish your shoes and clean the garbage
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And and do everything with just a smile on your face and a and a sense of exuberance about it and it was just great fellowshipping with the men here and with the pastors and getting to meet other like -minded believers from both across the u .s.
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Alaska Hawaii Africa Asia South America and New Zealand There was just so many people and it was just great to hear about their testimonies and how
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God has how God is Using them where they're serving
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So overall just a great experience Definitely recommend it to all the men who haven't been before so That's what
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I took away from the conference. Thank you. Good evening my
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What I brought back from the Conference first of all, I've seen many ways to enter a church
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This is the first time I've ever seen a church entered like the start of the Boston Marathon I've never seen pastors run that fast to get seats in the front
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Interesting secondly, if you go to a conference with the men from your church and They are all close to six foot or above have all your cup have all your conversations sitting down I spent most of my time when we were standing talking like this.
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I Felt like it was the Fellowship of the Ring and I was the Hobbit and secondly secondly be very careful
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About where you go with the men from your church I spent a lot of time at the
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San Diego Zoo And most of it on my own I was taking some pictures looked up in the middle.
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They were gone So I figured well, I'll just go down this road. I mean, it's only a zoo. I'll run it to somebody
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Mm -hmm, and then I checked my My cell phone and I had no signal
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When I finally got a signal back I had six messages. Where are you? So we finally got back together and they got me on the plane and I'm now known as the old man who gets lost in zoo, but And another thing
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I'm just coming down off the sugar rush I've had for a week and a half I've never seen so much sugar in one place at one time.
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I Mean these these people these people must not know about diabetes It was interesting but To echo the words of the other the men have gone before me
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It was overwhelming the amount of Phenomenal preaching and teaching that you get at this conference, and I've been to other
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Christian conferences, you know six ways to have a better marriage and in 12 ways to increase the size of your church and things like that this was so different and So deep and so powerful
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That it I too would want to add my voice to the men that haven't gone
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If you haven't gone you're missing something worthwhile What I took away from it spiritually and the verse that that stuck with me was
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The first session with John MacArthur and the first verse that he talked about that he spoke of was
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Acts chapter 2 verse 39 Now I gotta find it the glasses aren't helping.
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Oh, okay For the promises for you and your children and for all who are far off as many as the
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Lord our God Will call to himself The many that the
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Lord our God will call to himself and Afterwards I Get on a lot of websites and it's just I love to read a lot and anything
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I get but I was on John Piper's site and He had an essay there called minimizing the
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Bible and I'd like to give you a quote from it Piper writes it seems to me that a growing number of pastors and missionaries
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Have lost confidence in This truth and the truth he's talking about is that what the
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Bible says in the power of the Holy Spirit Can create and sustain the Church of Christ? They have concluded these pastors and missionaries that the gap between the glory of Christ and The religion of the national is simply too great for the fullness of God's Word to overcome
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The upshot seems to be the minimization of the Word of God in its robust and glorious fullness
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Dr. MacArthur in that first session what he started to talk about fell on me
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Like a safe falling on a character in an old cartoon it just hit me so hard and He wasted no time to getting getting to his point
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His title why every true Calvinist must affirm a biblical ecclesiology and reject church growth theory and He introduced us to what he called the first church of the tears
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That the church Evangelical churches in the 21st century are churches that are full of cares with a smattering of the of the saved that He took an enormous amount of scripture
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I have never heard that many references that quickly in all my life and He just piled reference on reference to show that the contextualization of the gospel to make it palatable palatable to the cultures of the world is producing an unregenerate church
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That as Piper said leads to a minimization of the Word of God in its robust and glorious fullness
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Then dr. MacArthur gave the components that produce true growth first of all that we preach a
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Transcendent message a message that transcends any culture no matter what the culture and it precludes the need for cultural
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Contextualization to the point that it minimizes the Word of God Secondly we need regenerate congregations and He said this true worshipers gathered for spiritual discipline.
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That's what a church is This comes from biblical evangelism not contextualization not contextualized revivalism
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To quote James White what you save them with is what you save them to The third thing that he added these components was valiant perseverance
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The essence of the message of Jesus Christ and the cross is offensive to the world the world resents us
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Rightly so for the message which is God's truth preached and proclaimed and a call to alarm sinners to know
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They are sinners will incur Hostility yet. We are to valiantly persevere in preaching the word in and out of season fourth was an evident purity a
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Purity of theology of practice and of life that signs and wonders worldly worship and practice and the lack of a holy fear of the holiness of God does not produce true churches
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The purity of faith brings a regenerate people and lastly a qualified leadership
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And he took this from Acts 6 1st Timothy 3 and Titus 1 Those are the type
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Those things that are written there are the type of leadership You must have in a church it if it is going to be a true
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Church of Jesus Christ and preach the word and bring people to a true salvation John MacArthur sounded a clarion call
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To return to the Word of God for the building of the church. I have been in the past a consumer of the fat of the month in My Christian walk if it was out there,
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I was interested in it did the 40 days Experienced God All of those things.
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I mean if it was out there. I wanted to be part of it But I tell you since I've come to this church since I've sat under the leadership of The men who are the elders of this church.
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I No longer care what the fat of the month is. I want to hear God's Word preach
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Coming to BBC has put an end to my faddish wanderings Dr.
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MacArthur has set me a task to preach the word in all its robust and glorious fullness
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Wherever I find myself and to whomever I am with Christ will grow his church the written the written preached
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Word of God will be the method and the vehicle and the Holy Spirit will be the strength and All will be done to the glory of God alone
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That's what I brought back from this you know, I have been a Christian Since 9th since I was 34 years old
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I was going to say the year but I don't remember it and that was another thing.
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They brought up every time we sat down I'll let that be you know it is
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Been I preached before and I preached topically You know, what do they want to hear?
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What can I give them that's going to get him excited? What am I going to tell them? You know, that's going to get them to like me and You know what since I came back from California.
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I don't care what they think of me. I Don't care if they like me. I care that they hear the
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Word of God preached in all its robust fullness and That they come to know
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Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and that's all that matters Thank you for letting me go.
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Thank you for Letting me know such a thing was possible And thank you for letting me serve and minister in this church.
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Thank you What a hard act to follow
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I Want to say I'm gonna just compound upon what the men said and first of all,
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I want to thank the men that I was with You are wonderful men and the fellowship that you shared with me,
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I just can't thank you very very much Bernard you are one roommate.
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There you are. And anytime you want to go anywhere. I'll sign up with you Since I've been back
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I've been Mixing what I did at the Shepherds Conference very much with the things that are always
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Bouncing around on the inside of my own mind and I'm looking about me trying to understand society
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And I'm trying to understand where Cultures are moving and what the pressures are for the longest time.
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I thought that secular humanism the belief that man's reason is the measure of all things has appeared to be the main thrust against the church and Well more and more as we move along.
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I think clearly it's showing that Secular humanism does not stand alone Particularly in light of what we see is happening in the churches and if I could title a message
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I would say it was the church under assault and what I heard in this conference and Even what
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I read after I left because I went to some websites where other men who attended the conference
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Had posted their own Understandings and I wanted to sit back and go what were you listening to?
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I heard the same thing that you did and and I don't know whether it's appropriate to get into Specifically what was said, but just say to denigrate some of the speaking that went on in that ministry
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It I it's the first time I've ever responded to a blog in my life And I just simply said
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I was totally confounded. I'm gonna pull on Joey's thread just a little bit of contextualization and To make it very minimal in what was said
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They said quote -unquote Johnny Mac is throwing out the baby with the bathwater and In essence what they were trying to say is contextualization is wonderful and They just missed the whole subtlety of the message yes, there is a contextualization that occurs however, we've run amok with it
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So I'm gonna just take a little back Predictions in the 19th and early early 20th century spoke of the the final victory of secularism and the death of the church,
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I don't know if anyone ever heard but Freud had dismissed religion basically as a pathology
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Basically he said there would be a future future utopia When religion was dead
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I think We've proven that that's to be a false diagnosis what's happening in secular humanism today as far as I can tell people are beginning to realize that far from creating a humanist utopia secularism has produced nothing but a
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Disenchantment of a personal and a social level The West has began to lose its faith.
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However, it hasn't lost its faith in religion. It's it's lost its faith in Human reason
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Oddly the wound has not been inflicted by a robust Christian witness but by an atheistic post -modern the children of the secular humanists the assault today by post -martinists is not so much against Christianity as It is the ideology of Enlightenment Or the belief that reason could ever provide an objective truth
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This post -modern Relativization if there's such a word of all truth has undermined the faith that modern man can solve things with his own rational abilities
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So, what do we see happening? Atheism is being supplanted with pantheism logos.
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Our word is being replaced by mythos or myths Post -modernism seemingly is bringing about the end to secularism, but this raises further questions of where is post -modernism taking us?
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Apparently it's taking to us a world that's enveloped in spirituality, but it's hostile to Christianity What do
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I say? Perhaps a dominant but false Church that brings all of its forces to bear against the true
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Word of God This embrace of spirituality has been evidenced in a new emerging symbolic figurehead
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And if you bear with me just for a moment, Oprah Woman by the name of Marcia Nelson the author of a book called the gospel according to Oprah She called her the inspirer -in -chief.
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Well, frankly, I think she she may be on to something a couple of years ago a poll had been conducted by a website called belief net and Found that 33 % of the respondents 6 ,600 some -odd respondents said that Oprah had more of an impact on their spiritual life than their own pastor
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Does she have influence with her celebrity? Her charm her influence and her power
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Oprah is going deeper into an expanded area. Perhaps you've seen that she Recommends books in her book club
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When she does that it becomes an instant bestseller She's making political endorsements, perhaps you've seen one of those recently
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Most striking to me is she's now co -teaching a religious class on the web where she has over 700 ,000 people
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Studying with her and a New Age author by the name of Eckhart Tolle Tolle calls himself a spiritual teacher and says that his philosophy includes that from Buddhism Islam and some
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Christian influences After making Oprah's book up tolls a New Age earth sold some three and a half million copies around the world and This is something that I took from from Oprah.
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She said at one of her first web classes She said well Christianity is a valid way to achieve high states of spirituality
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It must not be considered a unique way or a correct way Not only that she said
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I don't believe that Jesus Christ came here to start Christianity Talk about taking a step back and wondering where or not
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People are getting their preconceived notions from you know, this woman started out in a
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Baptist Church. So that's not to say that All ways or people who are sitting under perhaps a solid pulpit are gonna be carrying the word forward now we know
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Oprah is not a minister God, but my comments illustrate this state of The civilization and spirituality we see today in our competitive society some
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Pelt some pulpits however are attempting to adapt the busy the biblical message to target the worldview of the postmodern generation that they are hoping to reach in practice these contextualizers
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Assimilate much of the worldliness as possible in an attempt to earn the world's esteem
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The underlying message I perceived during the Shepherds conference spoke to the minister's role
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In the face of false or errant teaching and that's where I came with my title That's the church under assault and it is not necessarily
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The church an assault from people on the outside who say there is no
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God The church is having an assault from pulpits just like this one around the country
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Contextualization itself is a term that has a history in the dynamic equivalence of Bible translation It's the practice of either altering either terminology or the essence of the message in order to reach a certain culture
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Obviously, there's a legitimate place for contextualization in the pulpit because it is necessary to translate
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The gospel into a language and with an awareness of some of the customs that the people you're trying to the point is
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It is necessary To avoid putting obstacles in the way of certain people.
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Dr. MacArthur happened to say That he wore a tie out of respect for the word
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Well, likewise if he was to go into a foreign area, he might represent
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Or follow the customs like Mike was talking about when he had gone to India whether or not he wore shoes
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Upon the pulpit. Those are things that don't affect the word itself However, they are allowing you to step in and Be accepted if you will as an as an approved messenger
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In the last decade or so, however, the passion for contextualizing is shown no restraint whatsoever
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The result is all kinds of worldly behavior being found in the church under the guise of cultural contextualization
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I shudder at the thought of the irreverent or the mishandling
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Outright rejection of God's Word We see this occurring in so many pulpits today so -called pastors for the church has one of the gentlemen earlier had said the
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Church of the tears like Joel Osteen who who Basically provides a pep talk with a spritz if you will of Christianity Well, his pews are comfortable for Buddhists the
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Muslims the Jews Let me tell you if what you're saying from the pulpit isn't offending anyone in this and you're you're not preaching the word
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There's a pastor. I've never heard of the man before and I was actually quite surprised and when I came home
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I had to do a search on him But he's a pastor in the Northwest and he stands in God's oratory pulpit and he spews profanities and he uses illicit illustrations to get his message across and The only thing that kept ringing through my head as I was hearing it from the pulpit
01:00:11
How does that square and how could how can you? Follow the commandment to be holy as I am holy when you're swearing from the pulpit
01:00:22
Many pulpits now embrace elements of mysticism. Others simply say that the gospel is insensitive
01:00:28
It's presumptuous of us to declare that there's one true God Many as we heard this morning shun the message of the cross, but purely seek a dialogue
01:00:38
If I were to ask you what the fundamental truth or the fundamental reality is the distinguishing fact of Christianity What essential core confession can boundly mark
01:00:51
Christianity or our ministry? What's the theological absolute that governs our life
01:00:58
I Believe the answer can be found in three words Jesus is
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Lord That's our great confession If you will confess with your mouse that Jesus is
01:01:12
Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you shall be saved listen Christianity is all about whether people will live or die
01:01:24
We have the Bible If the Bible is what we say it is
01:01:30
Then it puts everything in its proper perspective Is God going to speak or is man going to speak?
01:01:37
Do we arrogantly think that we are going to be the savers of life? When the
01:01:47
Word of God is preached God brings conviction. He brings repentance. He brings belief and he brings eternal life to his elect now
01:01:58
That's not how contemporary evangelism is done. We're told that Jesus wants to be our personal Savior the ambiguity
01:02:04
Ambiguity of that phrase suits the current worldview comfortably However, when you listen to Jesus at the very core of his teaching is that he is
01:02:12
Lord Kurios Master he didn't tone it down He said that to everybody
01:02:19
He is the absolute sovereign master and he never hesitated to declare to his friends and enemies.
01:02:25
That's why they wanted to kill him All who trust in Jesus completely have yielded to his Lordship Listen to John 13 13 you call me teacher in Lord and you were right for so I am
01:02:38
Phil Johnson stated at the conference The Apostle Paul in his missionary journeys had made enemies in Thessalonica and Berea So much for being sensitive and non -offensive as a result
01:02:50
He went to Athens and interestingly Paul does not try to assimilate the culture. He instead repulsed it
01:02:56
As Joey said in Acts 17 His spirit was intensely provoked the
01:03:01
Greek word contains the idea of outrage or indignation and somewhat that I Always felt badly in myself because my own response to many things is an outright anger and indignation
01:03:14
Matter of fact fairly recently I sent an email out to the elders of the staff in a response To something that I had been asking whether or not
01:03:21
I had an appropriate biblical response Paul was highly educated knew all about the
01:03:27
Greek pantheon of gods But this was his first time to be in Athens and see all the temples with his own eyes and wherever he looked he saw
01:03:33
Signs of this pagan idolatry. It was the defining mark of the culture and it grieved
01:03:39
Paul deeply He immediately began confronting the idolatry by preaching Christ crucified
01:03:44
He publicly proclaimed the truth in a place where people could not help but hear him.
01:03:49
He disputed he debated Not only with those in the synagogue, but with those in the marketplace
01:03:55
He didn't accommodate he answered their questions and their objections with truth
01:04:02
The words not an outdated message no matter what the world believes the eternal truth is written
01:04:08
Revelation of the character of God and God does not change Jesus Christ sacrifice on the cross the miracle of the resurrection the glory of his ascension his imminent return
01:04:19
Are as powerful today as they were that first Easter morning Preach the word
01:04:26
Thank you. All right
01:04:40
I think I have a new preaching lab class ready to go five guys in that well
01:04:45
Thank you. I brought something to say in case these guys ran out of time didn't left too much time
01:04:50
But I don't think I need to do it now. So Thank you, man By the way when
01:04:57
I think of contextualization, I think here's contextualization when we preach on Sunday morning
01:05:02
There are all kinds of people in the congregation Different colors different sexes different everything and You will take this message and in the culture that God gives you the friends that you have the gym that you go to the
01:05:14
Work that you go to you will be able to give that same message in your culture in your context
01:05:20
And so when guys come in and they have tattoos and they hear the word their friends are tattooed
01:05:25
They preach the word to them guys come in and they're Harley -davidson guys They hear the word that you hear and they preach the gospel to their