Shepherds' Conference Report 2010

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 have to fill the time somehow. Everyone, when they come back from the

Shepherds 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, it's the quality is just unsurpassed on earth as far as I've seen.

And we have not only an entire orchestra, an entire choir, a chorale, people from the

Metropolitan Opera. I mean, then you have three thousand 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 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 almost salvo and almost condemned.

No, it's made more stark in the shadow of the cross. And just the verses,

Odyssey, 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 this man.

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 and 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.

And, you know, this week I was thinking about that and I replayed that song a few times on YouTube.

And 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. That's a great song. And I think overall, if we look at Hebrews 2 .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 get 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. And, you know, 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. And 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. And I've been doing a lot of reading in Romans six and that again, that brought that to mind, uh, in that, in that particular song, the particular hymn.

Now there was other things going on in the Shepherds Conference. As you may guess, there was a lot of preaching. Uh, there's some great expository preaching, um, um, by some of the, some of the most faithful and most beloved preachers, uh, currently in evangelism,

I shouldn't use evangelism, they should say reformed evangelism. And, uh, Al Mohler preached on John nine and just overall, when he, when, when these men preached, it was almost like, you know, to Timothy, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved a work 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, it'd 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, um, particularly like, uh, some of 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 adverse of that statement and what it meant.

But in any event, when Mohler preached on John nine, I've always loved John nine. It's kind of like a, it's kind of like a situational comedy.

You know, the blind man is 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, uh, 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 won't, 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 nine here. And it's really the end. And it's really the end.

The curtain comes down on the Pharisees in this, in this, 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 the reviled him saying you are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.

I mean, and that's it right there. I mean, they are completely dumb and blind as to who Christ is.

And not only that is they're saying they're disciples of Moses. Give me a break. These guys are the disciples of devil.

Just exactly. This is what Jesus pointed out. Uh, finally, last point.

And then my contractual obligation is void. Um, MacArthur preached three really, at least three really good messages on, um, separation, integrity, and compassion.

And I'd encourage you guys to, to listen to them online. But, um, the one on integrity, something

I've been thinking about a little bit, I talked about reverence for the Lord, concern for the church, devotion of the truth and gratitude for salvation.

And under concern for the church, he preached on second Corinthians five, 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.

And it really kind of, you know, cuts to the quick in that 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're 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, 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.

Ephesians 30, I mean, Ephesians, excuse me, Ezekiel 34 is a great passage. You know, we've got, we've got, no, one's muddying up the waters at this church.

You know, we don't have people crowding us out. They're feeding us. The Lee Insta streams of living water, and we've got a responsibility, of course, to, to back them up.

That's it. That's all I got to say. I want to start off by saying thank you to the elders for sending us out to the

Shepherds 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, they're just 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 know, 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 haircut.

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.

You want, 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 3000 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.

Um, got to meet a lot of different people there. Uh, I got to meet Pastor Mike's brother,

Pat and, uh, Eric Raymond. Some people I've only talked to through email before, uh, 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 words from the fire.

It was really nice. Um, but it's interesting getting to hear him talk about his own ministry. Uh, 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 says he's been teaching ever since. Um, so that was really, really interesting to hear encouraging.

He talked about how, uh, I think some of the, some of the guys looking at going to the seminary were asking questions about when should they start teaching?

Um, 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, uh, his father asking him to teach the next day. The fellowship, like I said, was, was great.

It was great to meet pastors from all over. I spoke to a pastor from India, uh, another one from New Zealand. And, uh,

I was just thinking what a blessing the conference must be for these pastors. You know, there's pastors all over that are shepherding people that can be difficult going through trials, you know, maybe, maybe church splits and, um, 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, um, my brothers from BBC there a little more too, you know, spend the week with them.

And, uh, it was just a great time of fellowship. One thing I really took away from the conference that really stuck out to me, um, 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, uh, 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 love the conference, it really left me eager to come home and see

Natalie. And I just thinking about how God has blessed me with a wonderful wife. And, uh, it was just very encouraging to know that whatever ministries the

Lord puts before us, he gives us, you know, a wonderful wife and has given me a wonderful life.

So any men that have not gone to the shepherds conference is 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.

Um, 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.

Um, they just went and served you with love and a smile.

I mean, just like Josh said, what, like the first time they see you coming into the conference, they just give you a greeting, a good morning, serving breakfast for you was, was nice.

It shows, um, how they put what they hear preach into practice.

And it was convicting to me as a layman and as a member in this church, um, worshiping the

Lord with 3000 men and the general sessions were great to hear the sins.

I mean, to hear the hymns and 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. Um, the sessions were great.

There was great a preaching from many men who the Lord has chosen from a car through to molar.

It was just great to see these humble servants of God exposit into scriptures. Um, also one of the keys for me was attending a seminar, um, on preaching by Alex Montoya.

Um, he was like a fireball like ready to explode. Um, it was a sight to see and I was very encouraged to see such passion and preaching and such encouragement that he was giving to other preachers to preach with passion, not this boring stoic preaching.

Um, my highlight of the conference has to be general session number seven. When Phil Johnson preached in first Corinthians 1613, his sermon was titled marching orders for a backslid in church.

It felt like being hit with a massive bat after the sermon was done. I mean brother

Phil gave four simple commands that are in first Corinthians. He was encouraging, 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. Um, this conviction that Phil Johnson sermon brought out,

I mean, excuse me, that brought about was, uh, an alertness to be prayerfully watchful of the dangers that can be seen in the so -called evangelical church.

Um, 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.

Um, it encouraged me to stand firm in the faith, not going to the left or to the right and my theological convictions, but standing firm in the

Bible, not allowing myself to be influenced by the so -called agreed 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 a with boldness.

Um, another highlight was a fellowshipping with the men from BBC getting to know these brothers was a, was encouraging.

Um, the conversations we had were edifying. It was nice to see these golly characters, um, that we see only on Sunday, but it was just nice.

Um, 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.

Um, I'm very grateful and I want to thank BBC for the opportunity, um, for allowing me to attend this year's shepherds conference.

I'm very grateful. Thank you. And if you have not attended a, a shepherd's 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 a half, 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, than go over just a sort of a general, um, overview.

I mean, it was awesome. Like the guys said, the singing was out of control. Um, a lot of, a lot of hymns

I couldn't even sing. It was just too emotionally, uh, stirring. So, um, and then when they had the Gettys ever get up there and sing and, you know, and lead us and in Christ alone,

I pretty much melted. I mean, that's one of my favorite sort of contemporary hymns and the Gettys or, or, um, same

Keith Getty. Yeah, he, he was one of the ones that wrote the song. And so that was pretty much more than I could bear.

But, um, yeah, the singing was incredible. Thousands of guys singing at the top of their lungs. It was awesome.

Um, preaching amazing. Um, but rather than give a big overview, I was going to,

I was going to kind of give a more of a specific, um, uh, a specific sermon that I heard that where I had some specific personal takeaways and, um, it would probably be good if we open our

Bible as well. Um, if we go to, uh, Job one, um, Steve Lawson, he did a, an excellent sermon on Job one, and I'm not going to rehash what he did, but I will,

I, I would like to sort of share some of the specific, um, uh, takeaways I had, uh, from there.

And, um, I don't know, maybe share with you. Hopefully you can, uh, um, learn something as I did.

If you look in Job one, uh, he will just read, starting in verse six, 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 to not put forth your hand on him.

So Satan departed from the presence of the Lord. What I put together is, is three quick takeaways that, that I, um, that I got out of this through the sermon, um, that Steve Lawson preached.

The first of those is, uh, that God is sovereign. Um, we know this story.

It's very familiar. Um, verses one through five, you know, it goes through all of Job's possessions.

I mean, thousands of animals, um, uh, great wealth, lots of feasting, great

God -fearing family. As far as we can tell, he was doing everything right. Um, and then next in the passage in verse six, 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, um, the

Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? And I never really thought about this, but who actually initiated, initiates the challenge here.

It's actually not Satan, but it's God. Um, 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, discussing

Job that God gives permission, um, for Satan to persecute Job. Um, to me, that's huge life -changing truth.

If you can really get a hold on that, on it and really grasp it. Um, since we know, you know,

God creates and ordains every circumstance in life and it's for his good pleasure. It's almost liberating.

Um, when we, when we think that we really have nothing to fear if we're his child and he controls, you know, 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.

Um, the second takeaway I pull out of this was, uh, you know, our testing is for his glory.

Um, John Piper, he calls himself a seven point Calvinist.

I don't know how many of you have heard that before, but, um, 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 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, 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 have more comfortable, 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, but 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, we know the end result of the result of Job's testing. He gets, 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. Um, we memorize that first, uh, 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 an eternity. I kind of, uh, an analogy kind of came to mind and you'll have to bear with me on this.

Um, uh, well, when I considered Job and, and, and this is helpful for me, um, to set it up, you have to kind of consider what, how

Satan works. We see here in Job. Um, he's kind of like an attack dog on a leash.

I mean, if you, if you picture him that way or in other places in scripture, he's referred to as a lying, looking to devour people.

And, and that's a pretty, um, uh, graphic picture as well. Uh, 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, what they really are down to the grain.

And 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, that's block of wood, block of wood, um, plain block of wood.

Then, then think of Satan as a lion or better yet a beaver. I know that's kind of a, you know, a little strange image, but stick with me.

As Satan requests, he takes bites out of, out of us, but only as God allows it hurts.

At times it seems like Satan's mercilessly, 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, 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 times that at the, at the tough times and 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 that 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 called, you know, he 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. Um, 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. Uh, DA Carson wrote a book, uh, which is surveys.

Paul's prayers is called a call to spiritual reformation. We probably have it on the book table. Um, 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.

And 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? And I know we'll, 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'll be more and more. We'll desire opportunities to minister, to serve others, to spread the gospel because we know that those things that glorify

God. So for a quick recap, the three takeaways, uh, that, that I got out of, out of job one, um, was one that God's sovereign to our test, 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, or you ought to, 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, um, uh, Lawson sort of tapped on, tapped in on this, uh, 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 is, you know, given, uh, you know, it's, it, it explains it here.

And I'm assuming that God, this ha this kind of interaction, um, goes on, um, regularly.

If God was serving 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 that due 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 chapter 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, uh, while, while you're turning there,

Matthew 16, I just, 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, uh, at shepherd'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, you know, 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 Burt Michelson.

Burt Michelson, uh, 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 Burt 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 Burt 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, crispy cream doughnuts 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 residents? 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, 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 to leave.

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. And I mean, it is 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, you know, 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 shepherds 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.

And 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 a, 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 four 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 Muller, 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 call 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, 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 shepherds 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 second

Timothy four, one to five, 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 three, 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, the environment balanced, wanting to have more money.

They will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and we'll turn away their ears from the truth and we'll turn aside to myths.

But you talking to Timothy, be sober in all things, keep your head down, endure hardship, do the work of evangelists.

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 with 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 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.

This 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've 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. 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 themselves.

To be among the men who are there. 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