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Well, it's been some time since I've been behind this pulpit, and I'm ashamed to say that the prospect for you has not improved. However, I am here to fulfill my contractual obligations. Steve had some very good advice today.
He said basically, you know, think about some things that encourage you and try to put some application around that. So I thought of a couple things, and I tried to keep it short. I think contractually I have seven to ten minutes, so we'll have to fill the time somehow.
Everyone, when they come back from the Shepherd's Conference, talks about the worship, and for very good reason. I think everybody there could say they're very, very encouraged by the worship, and probably their eardrums are very, very sore.
Basically, the quality is just unsurpassed on earth, as far as I've seen. We have not only an entire orchestra, an entire choir, a chorale, people from the Metropolitan Opera, I mean, then you have 3 ,000 shepherds who can sing as well, so it's kind of unbelievable.
But one hymn that really ministered to me was The Power of the Cross, Ode to See the Dawn, and when I heard that and when they sang it, it was just incredible. I was thinking of 1 Corinthians 1, 18 through 24, and I think we're all familiar with that.
For the word of the cross is fully to those who are perishing, but to those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? And then it continues on 24. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
And, you know, that hymn really sums that up to me. To those who are saved, the cross holds an almighty and divine power, and it's really the linchpin of salvation history. And the division of humans, or humanity, into Homo Salvo and Homo Condemno is made more stark in the shadow of the cross.
And just the verses, O to see my name written in the wound, for through your suffering I am free, death is crushed to death, life is mine to live, one through your selfless love. And then, of course, you know, this is the power of the cross, son of God slain for us, what a life, what a cost, we stand forgiven at the cross.
I can tell you that last verse is sung with such power and fervor by those men. And I know that Pastor Mike had said, you know, you're talking about shepherds who are mostly broken people, and as MacArthur was saying, it's the broken pots that make the best noise.
And for some reason, you know, and Frank was just talking about this to me in the atrium over there, I tend to melt into a puddle when I sing that verse. I just can't really get that out without really dissolving for some reason.
And when I considered that how the shepherds, they say it was such joyousness. I was just considering that this week, and I read something on Chalice by Spurgeon that really hit the nail on the head. It said, you need not weep because Christ died one-tenth so much as because your sin rendered it necessary that he should die.
You need not weep over the crucifixion, but weep over your transgression, for your sins nailed the Redeemer to the accursed tree. To weep over a dying Savior is to lament the remedy. It were wiser to bewail the disease.
To weep over the dying Savior is to wet the surgeon's knife with tears. Spurgeon always has a way with words. It were better to bewail the spreading pulps which the knife must cut away. To weep over the Lord Jesus as he goes to the cross is to weep over that which is the subject of the highest joy that ever heaven and earth have known.
Your tears are scarcely needed there. They are unnatural, but a deeper wisdom will make you brush them all away and chant with joy his victory over death in the grave. This week I was thinking about that, and I replayed that song a few times on YouTube.
It's absolutely true. We Stand Forgiven at the Cross is a verse we can really sing with a smile on our face. It's a great verse. It's a great song. And I think overall, if we look at Hebrews 12 .2, it ties into that.
He went to the cross with a joy set before him. He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. So we've got to remember our outcome, namely our salvation.
And we will sing these verses joyfully and powerfully, knowing our Redeemer lives and is seated at the right hand of the Most High. He went for the joy set before him. Purchasing his people by his blood was his joy.
The hymn just really ministered to me this last week. And that's just one part of a lot of really good, God-honoring, doctrinally correct hymns you're going to hear extremely loudly and sung extremely well at the Shepherds Conference.
I just encourage you to go for that. One last thing that Spurgeon said, I wanted to put it down here. We are dead to sin, as a dead shepherd to his sheep, as the flock passes over the dead shepherd's grave, or even feed their own.
Yet he regards them not, so our old sins and habits come about us. But we, as dead men, know them no more. We are buried to them. I've been doing a lot of reading in Romans 6. And that, again, that brought that to mind in that particular song, that particular hymn.
Now, there was other things going on at the Shepherds Conference, as you may guess. There was a lot of preaching. There was some great expository preaching. By some of the most faithful and most beloved preachers currently in evangelism.
I shouldn't use evangelism. I should say reformed evangelism. And Al Mohler preached on John 9. And just overall, when these men preached, it was almost like to Timothy, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved.
A worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. I mean, they were spot on on their exposition. I mean, to the point where I'd talk to the other guys afterwards and be like, you know, he's absolutely right, that verse says that.
But I never got that depth out of it ever before. And it was just great to hear. And particularly like Simone MacArthur's preaching on, I think it was in Corinthians, where he's talking about a given statement by Paul.
And then looking at the averse of that statement and what it meant. But in any event, when Mohler preached on John 9, I've always loved John 9. It's kind of like a situational comedy. You know, the blind man has brought sight to the blind man.
And then he realizes that everyone around him is blind. All the Pharisees are as blind as bats about understanding who Christ was. And he was a blind man who was living in a blinded world. And he only knew this once he's given a sight, both natural and spiritual, discernment of the person of Christ.
And the Pharisees, who could not perceive who Jesus was, were more blind than the formerly blind man, despite being the spiritual leaders of Israel. In fact, the formerly blind man is in the situation of actually teaching or trying to teach the Pharisees if they'll receive the teaching.
And I think this is crucial to understand because if you ever have the opportunity to evangelize, you don't want to be driven mad by the fact that you seem to be bearing no fruit. But you've got to keep this in mind.
The world is blind to the nature of Christ and the need for salvation. And something supernatural has to happen to regenerate them to perceive the truth. And I just want to read this small section of John 9 here.
And it's really the end. The curtain comes down on the Pharisees in this section. So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.
He answered, Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. They said to him, What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He's already explained this about three times by this point.
He answered them, I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? And they reviled him, saying, You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.
We know that God has spoken of Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from. And that's it right there. They are completely dumb and blind as to who Christ is. And not only that, they are saying, They are disciples of Moses?
Give me a break. These guys are the disciples of the devil, exactly as what Jesus pointed out. Finally, my contractual obligation is void. MacArthur preached at least three really good messages on separation, integrity, and compassion.
And I encourage you guys to listen to them online. The one on integrity is something I've been thinking about a little bit. He talked about reverence for the Lord, concern for the church, devotion to the truth, and gratitude for salvation.
And under concern for the church, he preached on 2 Corinthians 5 .12. We are not committing ourselves to you again by giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart.
It really kind of cuts to the quick. We've got some very good shepherds here at BBC. And I think they've given us cause to defend them and even boast about them. As long as we are boasting about them in the Lord, of course, I don't want to go beyond this morning's message.
And it reminded me of something that Steve Lawson said when he was here in 2007. He talked about the importance of standing with faithful men of God in difficult times. Or even against just the plain old calumny to hit them day by day.
And we've got a responsibility, of course, to support our pastors. They've fed for us. They've looked after us. Ezekiel 34 is a great passage. No one's muddying up the waters at this church. We don't have people crowding us out.
They're feeding us, leading us to streams of living water. And we've got a responsibility, of course, to back them up. That's it. That's all I've got to say.
I want to start off by saying thank you to the elders for sending us out to the Shepherd's Conference. It was an experience I won't forget. And it was very encouraging, convicting at times. I was amazed by many things there, struck by many things there.
One was the people. First thing in the morning, everyone's out there. The greeters are there in the morning. And they're not just there to hand you a piece of paper and say head on in. They wanted to talk to you.
They wanted to find out where you were from. They wanted to love you, know about you. And as soon as you get in, food is ready. Breakfast, coffee, everything's there. And they're ready to feed you and take care of you and love you.
And it was just amazing, the service, the hearts of the people there. And even at lunch, I mean, I can think of going to restaurants and you don't get service so great. You're eating and people are coming around with the dessert before you've even finished the meal.
They're taking their trash from you. You don't have to go looking for trash cans. And they had the shoe shining. I think this might have been the first year for the barbershop. Is that right? There was a barbershop there this year if you wanted your hair cut.
So that was pretty amazing, just people going out of their way to serve you. And it encouraged me to be more welcoming to people here at BBC. I felt very welcome there. And I think it's encouraging and convicting that we should be welcoming to everyone that comes here, especially visitors.
So the hymns, the music, I'll jump on what Barry said. The 3 ,000 plus men, shepherds singing is, you know, you can sing your loudest and not hear yourself. It was amazing. And you think about these people, these pastors coming from all over the world.
And you just think, heaven, how much greater will heaven be? You know? The live preaching. I've listened to MacArthur on MP3 many times. There's something to say for actually sitting there, being under the preaching of the word.
And he preached on three messages like Barry said. And the one on integrity, some things really stuck out there to me. I just want to touch on those. He talked about having a life of integrity, your life reflecting what you preach.
And as Christians, you will be attacked and you will be maligned by people. And when people speak evil of you, you lose ministry opportunities. And he said your life should be worth defending. And your ministry should be something worth defending.
So it was a great experience to sit under the preaching of these men of integrity. And even leaving the Shepherds Conference and coming back here, you just think, we've been blessed here with men of integrity that preaches the word week in and week out.
I got to meet a lot of different people there. I got to meet Pastor Mike's brother Pat and Eric Raymond, some people I've only talked to through email before. I met a man named Chuck Haddix at lunch. And he invited us to a dinner or a dessert reception with Dr. Moeller after he preached that night, which was pretty nice.
It was only 30 to 40 guys, just a small group that had coffee and cookies for us and a free copy of Words from the Fire. It was really nice. But it's interesting getting to hear him talk about his own ministry.
I think he said he was either 15 or 16. His father came into his room one night and said, the Sunday school pastor is sick. You're going to have a long night ahead of you. You're teaching tomorrow. He said he's been teaching ever since.
So that was really, really interesting to hear, encouraging. He talked about how I think some of the guys looking at going to the seminary were asking questions about when should they start teaching. They're looking at going to seminary.
And he said, you should be teaching now. God will open those opportunities if you're called into ministry. And that's where he cited his example of his father asking him to teach the next day. The fellowship, like I said, was great.
It was great to meet pastors from all over. I spoke to a pastor from India, another one from New Zealand. And I was just thinking what a blessing the conference must be for these pastors. There's pastors all over that are shepherding people that can be difficult going through trials, maybe church splits, and maybe they even have elder boards against them.
And what a joy and encouragement it must be for them to come together at the Shepherds Conference and encourage one another. And it was great to get to know my brothers from BBC there a little more too, spend the week with them.
And it was just a great time of fellowship. One thing I really took away from the conference that really stuck out to me is that these men that were preaching and teaching, the way they spoke about their wives and how important their wives were in their ministry really stuck in my mind.
And Rick Hollins, when he was doing a seminar session called The Art of the Sermon, said his wife, who understands the exegetical process, has become his most faithful advisor. And Al Mohler talking about how much he loves his wife and how none of his ministry would be possible without her.
So as much as I loved the conference, it really left me eager to come home and see Natalie and just thinking about how God has blessed me with a wonderful wife. And it was just very encouraging to know that whatever ministries the Lord puts before us, he gives us a wonderful wife and has given me a wonderful wife.
So any men that have not gone to the Shepherds Conference, it's an experience I won't forget. It was a wonderful time and I encourage you all to go. And that's what I have. Good evening. Attending this year's Shepherds Conference was a wonderful experience.
Just absorbing it all was a numbing experience, to be honest with you. But being in the midst of these men who had a strong conviction of the word and for preaching was such a wonderful time. To see thousands of men from all around the world who had a passion for biblical ministry was very humbling, especially with the fads and trends that are happening in the evangelical church that dominate conferences.
It was just encouraging to see these men going to a conference where preaching and Bible exposition was key. Also, what struck me was the service of these faithful members of Grace Church. It was also convicting.
They just went and served you with love and a smile. I mean, just like Josh said, the first time they see you coming into the conference, they just give you a greeting, a good morning. Serving breakfast for you was nice.
It shows how they put what they hear preached into practice, and it was convicting to me as a layman and as a member in this church. Worshipping the Lord with 3 ,000 men in the general sessions were great.
To hear the hymns in a maximum volume with these manly voices behind you was a blessing. It was like dead men singing to our king. It was just amazing. The sessions were great. There was grade-A preaching from many men who the Lord has chosen, from MacArthur to Mohler.
It was just great to see these humble servants of God exposited into scriptures. Also, one of the keys for me was attending a seminar on preaching by Alex Montoya. He was like a fireball, like ready to explode.
It was a sight to see, and I was very encouraged to see such passion in preaching and such encouragement that he was giving to other preachers to preach with passion, not this boring, stoic preaching.
My highlight of the conference has to be General Session No. 7, when Phil Johnson preached in 1 Corinthians 16 .13. His sermon was titled, Marching Orders for a Bachelor in Church. I felt like being hit with a massive bat after the sermon was done.
I mean, Brother Phil gave four simple commands that are in 1 Corinthians. He was encouraging the men to be watchful, to stand firm in the faith, and act like men and be strong. I mean, the sermon was to encourage pastors who were being biblical to continue to be in biblical and to not be influenced by the evangelical mess that is in our day.
It was deeply convicting to me, and it convicted me by this message. This conviction that Phil Johnson's sermon brought out, I mean, excuse me, that brought about was an alertness to be prayerfully watchful of the dangers that can be seen in the so-called evangelical church, to not allow my guard go down when it comes down to the influences of worldly false teachers who masquerade themselves as teachers in the faith.
It encouraged me to stand firm in the faith, not going to the left or to the right in my theological convictions, but standing firm in the Bible, not allowing myself to be influenced by the so-called agree-to-disagree model, but to stand firm in the word, not allowing myself to change the message due to trends that are found in the church, but to be a man not wavering in the faith, not to be a boy in the faith, but to be a man and to stand up and man up with boldness.
Another highlight was fellowshipping with the men from BBC. Getting to know these brothers was encouraging. The conversations we had were edifying. It was nice to see these godly characters that we see only on Sunday, but it was just nice.
Also, meeting a pastor from Haiti was encouraging, to see a smile on his face after the aftermath he went through, and to meet so many pastors and lay leaders that were there with their pastors was encouraging.
I'm very grateful, and I want to thank BBC for the opportunity for allowing me to attend this year's Shepherds Conference. I'm very grateful. Thank you. And if you have not attended a Shepherds Conference, I would encourage you to attend next year, and you will not regret going.
It would bless you immensely. Thank you.
I went to the Shepherds Conference too, but I'm not contractually obligated, which means I have about a half hour, so strap in. I'm kidding. I won't take that long. But I'm going to do something a little bit different than go over just sort of a general overview.
I mean, it was awesome, like the guys said. The singing was out of control. A lot of hymns I couldn't even sing. It was just too emotionally stirring. And then when they had the Gettys ever get up there and sing, and lead us in Christ alone, I pretty much melted.
I mean, that's one of my favorite sort of contemporary hymns. The Gettys, or is his name Keith Getty? Yeah, he was one of the ones that wrote the song, so that was pretty much more than I could bear. But yeah, the singing was incredible.
Thousands of guys singing at the top of their lungs was awesome. Preaching, amazing. But rather than give a big overview, I was going to kind of give more of a specific sermon that I heard where I had some specific personal takeaways.
And it would probably be good if we open our Bible as well. If we go to Job 1, Steve Lawson, he did an excellent sermon on Job 1, and I'm not going to rehash what he did. But I would like to sort of share some of the specific takeaways I had from there.
And I'll maybe share with you, hopefully you can learn something as I did. If you look in Job 1, we'll just start in verse 6, I'll go ahead and read. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.
The Lord said to Satan, From where do you come? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it. The Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job?
For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil. Then Satan answered the Lord, Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not made a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side?
You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But put forth your hand now and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. Then the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him.
So Satan departed from the presence of the Lord. What I put together is three quick takeaways that I got out of this through the sermon that Steve Lawson preached. The first of those is that God is sovereign.
We know this story. It's very familiar. Verses 1 -5, it goes through all of Job's possessions. I mean, thousands of animals, great wealth, lots of feasting, great God-fearing family. As far as we can tell, he was doing everything right.
And then next in the passage in verse 6, we see sort of a scene in the spiritual realm where Satan comes in to talk to God. Next thing that happened, it sort of surprised me a little bit. If you look, it says, The Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job?
And I never really thought about this, but who actually initiates the challenge here? It's actually not Satan, but it's God. God wants to display his glory to Satan and the universe by putting Job on display.
God sort of sovereignly controls the whole situation. And then we see later, after they go back and forth discussing Job, that God gives permission for Satan to persecute Job. To me, it's huge, life-changing truth, if you can really get a hold on it and really grasp it.
Since we know God creates and ordains every circumstance in life, and it's for his good pleasure, it's almost liberating when we think that we really have nothing to fear. If we're his child and he controls every molecule, every substance in the universe, you know that whatever you're going through is by his design.
And so we see that he controls this whole situation. And Job doesn't know it, but this is what's going on sort of behind the scenes. The second takeaway I pull out of this was, you know, our testing is for his glory.
John Piper, he calls himself a seven-point Calvinist. I don't know how many of you have heard that before, but it's interesting. Let me read the seventh point. If you look on his website, it describes it this way.
The seventh point, the best of all possible worlds, means that God governs the course of history so that in the long run his glory will be more fully displayed and his people more fully satisfied than would have been the case in any other world.
If we look only at the way things are now in the present era of this fallen world, this is not the best of all possible worlds. But if we look at the whole course of history from creation to redemption to eternity and beyond and see the entirety of God's plan, it is the best of all possible plans and leads to the best of all possible eternities.
And therefore, this universe and the events that happen in it from creation into eternity, taken as a whole, is the best of all possible worlds. The point is this, in your life, in the grand scheme of eternity, whatever circumstances or situations that you are sovereignly put in, that's the best possible scenario for God to get the absolute most glory in the end.
It's a little bit heavy to consider, but if you follow me, while we might like certain circumstances to change for our own comfort or perceived benefit, we need to think more like this. While I'd like something to be different in my life, say more money, a stable job, better health, better relationships, if God's most glorified in my current situation, as difficult as that may seem right now, I don't want any more physical comfort if God will get less glory in the end.
Christ prayed this way in the garden. He said, if you're willing, remove this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done. Certainly Jesus would be more comfortable under different circumstances, but God was most glorified in his suffering and death.
It's similar with Job here. He could have more, granted it wasn't his decision at the time, but later on he could have cursed God. He could have been more comfortable and suffered less, but God would have lost the opportunity to glorify himself to Satan and then ultimately to the world through the Bible.
The last point is kind of tied to the second one, and that's that all things really do work together for our good. We know the end result of Job's testing. He gets back way more than he ever had lost in the first place.
And we're also really familiar with Romans 8 .28, and we know that that's really only true for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. We memorize that verse. We quote it in hard times, but the question I like to ask people, and I do frequently, is do you really, really believe that?
If you really believe it, as with the last point I mentioned, you would not want your circumstances to be any different, knowing that God's put them there to mold you, to grow you, to shape you into the vessel that he desires you to be.
This actually benefits you in the end because the more glory you give to God, the more spiritually rich your life will be here on earth, and then the greater reward, of course, you'll have in eternity.
An analogy kind of came to mind, and you'll have to bear with me on this. When I consider Job, and this is helpful for me, to set it up, you have to kind of consider how Satan works. We see here in Job, he's kind of like an attack dog on a leash.
I mean, if you picture him that way, or in other places in Scripture, he's referred to as a lying, looking to devour people, and that's a pretty graphic picture as well. In Luke 22, we see Jesus telling the disciples that Satan's demanded permission to sift you like wheat.
The idea here is a purifying, or to get to the bottom of what they really are, down to the grain. Satan wants to test the disciples to the point that they would reveal that they're no better than a Judas.
At least, that's what he wants to do. So we see Satan is at the mercy of God, kind of like a dog or a lion on a leash needing permission to act. For my analogy, imagine yourself now as a block of wood.
I know, that's a block of wood. Plain block of wood. Then think of Satan as a lion, or better yet, a beaver. I know that's kind of a little strange image, but stick with me. As Satan requests, he takes bites out of us, but only as God allows.
It hurts. At times, it seems like Satan's mercilessly attacking. Things are going bad in life. One thing after another is going wrong. It seems like God has abandoned you as Satan seemingly chisels away bigger and bigger chunks.
The chunks are so big that they almost seem to be changing your shape and deforming you. When you think nothing else can possibly go wrong, you're at the end of your rope. Satan has taken so many chunks out of you, you think you have nothing left.
And then it ends. You feel some relief. And then you wonder, like lots of us do when we go through really hard times, why would God do this to me? Why would he allow Satan to attack me like this? And then you sort of, again this analogy, then you sort of step back and you look in a mirror and you realize at the tough times, at any given time throughout the trials, all you could see was a little spot that was being bit, gnawed away at, when you were going through all that pain.
But then you step back further and further, and then you start to get a bigger view of yourself in the mirror, and you discover something amazing. You look at the complete picture and you see a beautiful sculpture.
And that really, the whole time God was causing Satan to chip away at you, he was really molding and carving like a perfectly skilled craftsman. And he created a perfect and beautiful result. And this really is a picture.
This is the imagery God even uses in scripture. He's the potter. And our job really is to see providence for what it is. God has a higher purpose in every little thing in our life. For us to desire anything else besides the circumstances we are set within, what God ordains for us is really to deny the craftsmanship of God.
Do we really believe Romans 8 .28? Do we believe that God causes all things to actually work together for our good? If we really believe this, I think our perspective on life and trials would be drastically different.
I would go as far as to say that if we really believed what it says here in Job and what Paul says in Romans, we would almost pray for trials so that we could glorify God most effectively and most efficiently and extremely even.
We don't have time to do it, but a great exercise, I had done this a while back with a group of guys, is to survey the prayers of Paul. If we consider what we typically pray for and what Paul prayed for, if you're like me, you're going to see some pretty extreme contrast.
D .A. Carson wrote a book which surveys Paul's prayers. It's called A Call to Spiritual Reformation. We probably have it on the book table. I would highly encourage that book. Because while God does care about our circumstances and he wants us to go to him with all our cares, Paul's emphasis is almost exclusively on spiritual growth and realization of God's truth.
Why do I bring this up? It's because your prayer shows what's important to you. With the limited time you have before the throne of God, what kind of things do you talk about to God? I know we're never going to quite be there, but to the degree that we are, our circumstances will be less and less important as far as our own comfort.
Our spiritual growth and God's glory will rise to a more prominent place in our mind. We'll desire less physical comfort or material things. It will be more and more we'll desire opportunities to minister, to serve others, to spread the gospel, because we know it's those things that glorify God.
So for a quick recap, the three takeaways that I got out of Job, one, was one, that God's sovereign. Two, our testing is for his glory. Three, all things really do work together for good. If you put these thoughts together, this is what you get.
Rather than expending energy thinking of how bad you have it or how you'd like things to be different, you ought to be content with where you are and praise him in the midst of that storm, knowing that he's sovereignly ordained your present circumstances for his best glory and for your greatest good.
So with this quick challenge in mind, here's a question to walk away with, and this is, Lawson sort of tapped in on this when he wrapped it up, going back to Job. If God was speaking to Satan as he did here in Job, which I assume he does because this explains it here, and I'm assuming that this kind of interaction goes on regularly.
If God was surveying the earth to find his most dedicated servants, would you be among the ones he would say this? Consider my servant your name. He or she holds material things very loosely. They will serve me no matter what you do to them.
The only thing they live for is to glorify me, and they understand that what you do to them is under my control and for my ultimate glory and their ultimate good. So go ahead and have them. I'm confident in my child.
That's all I got.
Well, I would invite you to open your Bibles to Matthew 16. Typically on Sunday evenings we have an exposition, as we will next Sunday, Lord willing, if he doesn't return first, which I always hope for before I preach.
But while you're turning there, Matthew 16, I thought I'd just take a moment and see if I could kind of sketch out for you what it's like to arrive at Shepard's Conference and then what it's like during the course of the week.
You get up fairly early in the morning. You drive in, and when you get to the parking lot, there's somebody riding a bicycle around with all kinds of funky gear on to watch over the cars during the course of the day.
You walk across the street onto the church lot. There are several people, including, I mean, the most obvious ones to me this year were Bert Michelson. Bert Michelson is a majorly, I mean, he's retired now, I think, but a very successful contractor who built the church, a very wealthy man.
And he's out there just to serve and to greet people in the morning. He doesn't say, Hi, I'm Bert Michelson, rich guy. He's just a servant at the church. He's out there handing out flyers, welcoming everybody, shaking hands.
Then a friend of mine from way back when at Grace Community Church, Mary Bella, a little woman in a wheelchair, is out there right next to Bert Michelson, handing out the flyers, welcoming everybody, smiling, greeting everyone.
You walk in. After you've received this flyer and you're bumping around, jostling around, there are a bunch of people lined up to give you your name tag, and it's quite a production to do that. They've got food all over the place, fresh Krispy Kreme donuts, and muffins, and coffee, and bagels, and fruit, and all manner of yogurts, and juices, and milk, and everything.
An espresso bar that's free. Everything is free. I mean, this is like the best thing ever. You walk on a campus. The parking, you hear this, Massachusetts Residence? It's free. Everything is free. Put your money away, it's no good.
After you've been assaulted by the word of God, the first thing in the morning, there's a snack out in the veranda. People are handing you snacks. You go back in. Then there's lunch. Then after another session, ice cream.
They're handing out ice cream. Then there's another session, you go out for dinner. I mean, I told Mike, I go, this is the first year I went to California and put on no weight. There wasn't a great reason for that, but put on no weight.
They've got a concierge there to hand out if you have a headache. And you're like, what am I going to do now? They've got aspirin. They've got Advil. They've got Aleve. They've got replacement name tags.
I'm not going to mention anybody, but someone named Josh lost his name tag. They've even got ice bags in case your knees are so bad that you have to sit somewhere with ice on your knees. They've got an internet cafe.
They've got people to ship your books back home. They've got experts out there in various areas to answer your questions. They've got people who volunteer for days to sort out all the free books. Did I say free?
Free books that they give us. This is the picture of a servant-hearted church, and this goes on all week. It's like this all the time. And then you leave in the evening, you get home, or you get back to your room late.
You get up in the next morning, you do it again. Friday night, things end. And after the last session, you go out onto the patio, and they've got churros and cake, and it's kind of set up like a little festival.
I mean, it's just wall-to-wall service. So with that said, and not really having talked about the preaching much, let's look at Matthew 16, verses 13 to 18. Nobody preached on this during the Shepherds' Conference, but it takes me where I want to go.
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he was asking his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, and others, Elijah, but still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said to him, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. Now I'm not going to exposit this. I'm not going to explain the whole Peter-Petra dichotomy there.
I'm not going to talk about popes or any of that other thing. I'm going to keep it simple. I want you to see, basically, in this passage, I think if we were to just look at some of the basic truths that we could see here, we could see that Peter is identified basically as God's man.
What he said, his confession, is said to be given him by God, so we could call that God's message. And then we also have God's promise, Christ's promise to build his church. And I was thinking about it, and I go, this is a good example, a good illustration, or a good kind of breakdown of what we get at the Shepherd's Conference.
The Lord Jesus Christ is still building his church today. He is using men, no better, no worse, sinners, just like Peter, to do so. Thirdly, the Lord uses God-given truths uttered by men, taught by men, men that he has strengthened and enabled to build his church.
In other words, there's a means by which Christ is building his church. Well, he said he would. Christ said he would build his church. He didn't say he might, or he already had, or it was nearly completed.
He didn't say, all I've got to do is just put a few more shingles on the roof. He said, I will build my church. And it's future tense, meaning he is saying that it is something he will accomplish. This is not, you know, Jesus is not some informed prognosticator.
He's not making something like a weather prediction. He's not setting the odds. It's not some kind of guess. He is the creator and sustainer of all life. He is announcing what he will, without fail, accomplish.
And that verb, building, is typically used, as one would expect, of construction. So it's an interesting kind of example. Because typically it would mean, you know, just a brick and mortar type of building, but that's not what he's talking about.
Christ himself has methodically laid the foundation of the church and given her skilled craftsmen, as it were, to continue the construction process, to continue the building up of the church. Now think about it for a moment.
Could the Lord simply say, as he did in the beginning, light, and there was light. He could just say church, and there would be church. But that's not what he does. He has designated means that he uses to bring about the building of his church.
In Ephesians 4, verses 11 and 12, Paul writes this, and he, talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, verse 12, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, notice, to the building up of the body of Christ.
This is how he's going to build his church. And I think about the gifts of the Shepherds' Conference. Steve Lawson, gift. Al Mohler, gift. Phil Johnson, gift. John MacArthur, gift. These are gifted men that the Lord has given to us in this age.
And they call us to do something, to ignore the siren calls of the world, to ignore these appeals to do church differently, to reinvent church, to update things, to make them relevant. I was just scanning Christianity astray, known to many of you as Christianity Today.
And there was a book review about a new book called, quote, A New Kind of Christianity, written by our good friend Brian McLaren, who was at some conference here at Congress or whatever they called it a few years ago.
And it was reviewed by Scott McKnight, who is not always in line with our views here, to be polite about it. Listen to what he says here. Scott McKnight talking about Brian McLaren's book. He says, Brian is not only poking evangelicals, he is also calling everything about Christian orthodoxy from the ecumenical creeds through the Reformation and up to present-day evangelicalism into question.
In other words, all of Christianity is up for debate. McLaren thinks that there are four crises facing the world, and therefore the church today. Now listen to these four things. This is Brian McLaren.
Crisis number one. Crisis number one. Prosperity that is ecologically unsustainable. In other words, we're too rich. We can't sustain it with the resources we have on the earth. We're spending too much.
We're going to run out of things, as it were. Secondly, equity shifts that are widening the gap between the rich and poor at record levels. In other words, we have the rich over here, the poor over there, and that is a huge crisis which we, the church, have to address.
Number three, security in a world with escalating violence. We have to be concerned with the fact that people are not safe in the world. And number four, a crisis of spirituality, since the world's religions are not adequately addressing the first three crises.
Well, the church is failing, it seems, in McLaren's view, to address these three issues of the ecological environment in which we live in, the gap between the rich and the poor, and safety. Peace and safety is what we need.
Now compare those crises to the sufficiency of Scripture and the charge that our mission is redemptive. In other words, if we could somehow solve these problems, if we could bring ecological stability to the world, if we could bring social justice to the world, if we could bring whatever that means, if we could bring security to the world, would we have solved the world's problem?
Only if you don't believe the Bible. If you just set aside the Bible, you're fine with these. If you're running for political office, you're fine with these. But when we go to the Shepherd's Conference, we're called again and again and again to return to the book, to return to the Bible, to stand firmly on Scripture.
We don't preach ecological responsibility. We preach repentance. And we are blessed in this age to have men who boldly proclaim that new truths, new problems with Christianity are nothing but old lies in fresh wrapping paper.
MacArthur even said, he said, you know, I have never been able to get myself motivated to chase down all these fads, because as soon as I catch up with one, it's outdated and I've got to chase another one.
It's a waste of time. You can't go after every new wind of doctrine. We have to remain firm on the truth. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4, 1 -5, a passage that we know well. I solemnly charge you, in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word.
Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. Verse 3, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, wanting to have their houses secured, wanting to have the ecology and the environment balanced, wanting to have more money, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.
But you, talking of Timothy, be sober in all things. Keep your head down. Endure hardship. Do the work of an evangelist. You just preach the word. You give people the gospel. Fulfill your ministry. Don't worry about anything else.
That is the charge that we receive every single year at the Shepherds Conference, and I never get tired of it. We all need to be reminded of the word-centeredness, the Bible-centeredness the Lord has commanded us.
Deviation from that principle is not of the Lord. There is no new Christianity. Our blessing when we go there is to hear some of the premier preachers and teachers of our age, the best that the Lord has to bring, truly gifts from the Lord Himself to the church.
Now, not only should you want to go for the food and the great service and the great preaching, but I want to say a word to the wives here. The wives of Bethlehem Bible Church should be lining up at my office, should be saying, we demand that my husband go next year.
I roughly, I sat down and I figured out, I think roughly it would cost you, out of pocket, about $450 a month if you can restrain yourself at the bookstores. And then I started figuring it out a little further.
That's less than $40 a month. Significantly less than $40 a month if you start budgeting now. That's just a little bit more than a dollar a day. I sound like an infomercial. You can do this. You need to go.
So what would motivate the women, the ladies here at BBC to want their men to go? After all, I don't get to go to the Shepherd's Conference, why should my husband get to go? Well, let me put it to you this way.
What is more refining than sitting under the Word of God? Wouldn't you like your husband to be a little more refined? Send him to the Shepherd's Conference. He's going to get about three months worth of sermons in three days.
He's going to come back and his hair is going to go back like that. Look at Jose, he lost all his hair. It is a great time. It is a refining time. It is a time, as every man has said, to get to know the other men who go.
But it is an opportunity to really just drink deeply from the well of God's Word. The Shepherd's Conference really is a church-building exercise. This is the method by which Christ will build His church.
Men go there from all around the world. They take these truths. They listen. They're basically convicted by the Word. They're beaten down and encouraged and resolved to go back to their home churches.
And what do they do then? They employ what they've learned to build up that church, the local assembly. By gathering together and then spreading out. This is the church's model. This is why we gather on Sundays.
We come to be equipped to do the work of the ministry and then we go do it. It's not just so we can come and kind of punch our clock, punch our time card, as it were. It's also a leadership-building exercise.
We learn there so that we can come back, serve better, grow more, be involved more, teach more. The more you know, the more you can teach. This is really what Paul talked about when he said, you know, these things I have taught you, Timothy, I want you to pass them on to other faithful men who instruct others also.
That's the whole point of this. It's not going to just strengthen BBC. It will strengthen your home. It will strengthen your home. You will get a bolder, braver, stronger man. That's what you want. Ladies, what are you waiting for?
You should be sitting down with your budget tonight trying to figure out how to get your husband to go. Don't let him say no. They need to go. I guess I'm done preaching. Let's pray. Father, we praise you for the opportunities you give us to go and hear these men, men that you have called, that you have set apart, that you have blessed with such giftedness.
Lord, to hear them rightly divide your word to even as the men said tonight, to be able to sing together, to just imagine what that's going to be like in heaven. Father, to see selfless service, people taking vacation time, serving of themselves, just desiring to be among the men who are there.
Father, what a model, how we ought to serve like that. Lord, would you bless BBC. Give us more people who would desire to serve. Father, I would pray for every family here tonight and for the folks who aren't here tonight.
Lord, I pray that there would be a groundswell of people wanting to go, of wives wanting to see their husbands go, of husbands wanting to learn more, to be more involved, to teach more in their homes.
Father, we know you can do all these things and we know that you have promised in your word to build your church and we trust you and believe in that promise. Father, would you bless our time this evening.
Would you make us Christians who really gather together on Sundays, not for any other purpose, but that we might preach your gospel to the surrounding world, Monday through Saturday. In Christ's name we pray.
Amen.