Welcome to Mars Hill. Good to see all of you who can’t afford a vacation home. If you’re new, we go right through books of the Bible, and we’ll talk about in a little bit why. Actually, it comes up in the sermon today. And so we’re in 2 Timothy chapter 4, so if you’ve got a Bible, you can go to 2 Timothy chapter 4, and that’s where we’ll be this evening.

So good to see you guys even though the Mariners lost, and the thing of it is if you’re gonna lose, do it quickly. Thirteen innings to lose. It’s like … I don’t know. We gotta pray about that. That’s what I’m saying.

So I’m gonna pray for us, and we’ll do work today in what has become recently just a really important text for me personally as your pastor and as a preacher, and I hope it makes a lot of sense for you as well. Love to share it with you.

So Father God, we do love you. We thank you for an opportunity to gather together. We thank you that we have the Scriptures, that you’ve spoken to us, that we don’t need to guess who you are or what you think or what you’ve done or what we should do. We simply need to take and read. We simply need take, read and listen and heed. And thank you so much, God, that you’ve cared enough to speak to us and to send your son to live for us, to die for us, to rise for us.

And Lord Jesus, we long for your coming. We long to see you again face to face. We long to be embraced by you. We long to hear “well done, good and faithful servant.” And as we study today, Jesus, please capture our hearts and fill them with a zealous and unquenchable passion for you so that we would be about your Kingdom business all the days of our life until we see you face to face.

May we have a taste of Paul’s heart today. May the same spirit that in dwelt him and inspired him and motivated him in dwell us and motivate us today. We love you, Lord God. We ask that you would meet us, that you would compel us to be passionate pursuers of you, and we seek that in Jesus’ good name. Amen.

It’s interesting as we get into 2 Timothy today, I would submit to you that the author of this book, Paul, is perhaps one of the most influential men in the history of the world. You would be hard-pressed to come up with a list of the most important, influential men in the history of the world that didn’t include Paul. So much of Western civilization, culture, work around the world is out of many of Paul’s concepts and teaching that was given to him by the Holy Spirit.

And it’s interesting because of all the things Paul taught and all the things Paul wrote, what we’re gonna deal with today is incredibly important and very, very practical for this reason. He’s at the end of his life. He’s writing his last letter. He’s sitting in a Roman jail. A Roman jail is totally different than ours. Ours you eat three square meals. You smoke cigarettes. You lift weights and watch porno so that when you get out you can be a criminal with maximum effectiveness. You’re well-rested, and you’re in good health.

The way a Roman prison works is totally different. They dig a hole 20 feet underground, and they put you in it, and there you sit until they kill you. And that is exactly where we find Paul. He’s in a hole. It’s dark. It’s cold. It’s wet. It’s damp. It’s dirty, and he is days or weeks from getting his head chopped off.

As he’s sitting in his cell, somehow he gets the opportunity to get a sheet of paper or a scroll, a writing utensil and to write his final letter. Of all the things Paul wrote and all the books of the Bible that he penned, this is his final word to us. And it’s really interesting to get a glimpse into someone’s life at this point.

You think about it. Let’s say hypothetically you knew that your death was forthcoming and very, very imminent. Who would you write to? What would you say? What would be on your heart? What would you leave as your legacy? What things would be so important that with the last few breaths that’s what you wanted to articulate and communicate? That discloses your heart. That discloses your love. That discloses your passion. That reveals who you are. That reveals what you care so much about. That’s the glimpse we get into Paul.

I was thinking about it this week ’cause I was on a plane headed out to New York to teach for the week. I was on the way back, and I was meditating on this text. I started thinking, man, if the flight attendant came over the loudspeaker and said, “We’re all gonna die. You got five minutes. Grab a piece of paper and write down whatever it is you wanna say ’cause this is the end.” I don’t usually think like that. It’s a little morbid, but I was thinking I wonder what I would say other than a couple things that I can’t say right now. But other than that, you know, I wonder what I would say. I wonder who – you start thinking who would I write to if I had one sheet of paper? What would I say?

Obviously, I would write to my wife, my kids. I mean that’s the center of my universe, and I’d throw something in for the church. But my wife and kids primarily are gonna get – I’d tell my sons to preach the gospel and my wife that I loved her and my daughters to marry someone who preached the gospel. It’d all pretty much be down to that. You guys plant churches. You ladies marry somebody who plants a church, and Sweetheart, make sure this happens. That’d basically be my letter.

But Paul has no wife. He has no kids, and so he writes to a young man named Timothy that he loves like a son. It’s a great. A man that he has spent 15 years mentoring, developing as a pastor, a man who at the point of receiving this letter is about my age, okay, about my age, somewhere in his early to mid-30s. I’m 33. I’m the same age that Jesus was when he died, which kind of freaks me out a little bit, thinking about this whole thing. If I was gonna die, what would I say? Who would I write to? What would that say about my heart?
So as we get into this today and we pick up this book, I want you to know the circumstances surrounding it. Want you to know you’re gonna hear from Paul. You’re gonna hear the final words from Paul from a Roman jail, and you’re gonna see what mattered to him most. And chapter 4 is the last chapter of this book. From here on, he’ll conclude. This is really the white-hot passion of his final breath. This is what’s on his mind. So he writes to Timothy, and I love where he starts.

He starts in chapter 4, verse 1, says, “In the presence of God,” okay. Here’s what’s interesting? Where’s Paul? He’s in the presence of God, in prison in the presence of God. That great? Paul at the end of his life knows he’s gonna die. He doesn’t say “Paul in prison. It stinks. It’s a hole. It’s a bad hole. The guy next to me has got a big hole. I got a little hole. Did I tell you I’m in a hole?” He doesn’t say, “I’m in the hole.” He says, “I’m in the presence of God.”

It’s beautiful that Paul is so aware of God’s perpetual involvement in his life and presence with him. Wherever you go, whatever you do, God is there with you, good and bad. There is no secret. There is no hidden or unseen life conduct with God. He knows all. He sees all. He’s present with you. He says, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus.” That’s his title, right, and his name, “who will judge the living and dead, and Jesus promised us” and here Paul rearticulates it, that he will judge the living and the dead.

Some of you are not Christians. When you die, you will stand before Jesus, and he will judge you as a sinner, and he will send you to Hell, and you’ll be separated from him forever in torment, and you will get exactly what you want – life without God, which means life without love, life without goodness, life without joy. You’ll get what you want. I’m trying to discourage you. That’s why I pitch it that way.

Now for some of you, you do know God or you will come to know God. He’s been tracking you down, and you’re trying to duck him, but he’s gonna get you ’cause he loves you, and he’s not gonna let you run too far. Those of you who do know God or will come to know God, you too will be judged by God, not as those who don’t know God. Those who don’t know God will be judged for damnation. You will be judged for rewards.

Christians, it tell us in Corinthians, will stand before the bema seat of Christ. That’s the judgment seat at the end. They would compete in the games, and then they would go before the judges, and the judge would say, “First, second, third. You ran well. You’re disqualified.” We will pass before Christ, and an account will be made of our life, and he will determine how well we have lived our life, how well we have run. He will be our judge, our judge.

And you can’t lose your salvation, but you can lose your rewards because salvation is a gift, and rewards are things that are given to those who have run well. We will be judged by Jesus, and Jesus can judge the living and the dead because he was dead and now he’s alive. He conquered sin and death. He resurrected from death, so he was Lord over life and death, and he can judge the living and the dead.

And he says in view of his appearing and his coming Kingdom. Jesus is coming back. We’re going to see him, the Bible says, face to face. And he will come, not as humble Galilean peasant, but as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and he will establish his Kingdom that will rule over all nations of the earth. What Paul says is Jesus is King and Judge. He’s coming. He will judge us. We need to live our lives in his presence in accordance with what he intends for us.

And so he says in light of all of this Timothy, I give you this charge. Here’s my orders. Here’s my decree. They’re gonna chop my head off, but I have a job description for you. I got some things that you need to be about.

Your life is no different. It’s lived in the presence of God. When you die, you will see Jesus Christ, and he will judge you for salvation and rewards or he will judge you for damnation and punishment. Your whole life should be about him and his coming Kingdom and the respect for those things that he instructs you to be about in your few short days on the earth.

So you think about it. Of all the things, it’s sort of hanging here. Paul says Jesus, the Kingdom, the judgment. Here’s the most important thing, Timothy. You think what would that be? What’s the most important thing? Here’s what he says – preach. I love that. I love that. This is my job. This is my life. This is what I do. Preach the Word. Okay, we’re gonna talk about preaching a little bit, and we’ll talk about the Word a little bit.

Preaching has fallen on hard times. Preaching has fallen on hard times because people love dialog, not monologue. That’s why it’s become very popular to do house churches, little tiny groups where everybody gets to well, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? What do you think? Well, I think – well, I think. There’s no proclamation. There’s no instruction. It’s not bad for a congregation to respond to a preached word, but it first needs to be preached before everybody chimes in and gives their two cents on it.

We live in a day where people don’t wanna be preached at. Who are you to tell me what to do? The preacher. We preach. That’s like going up the lifeguard saying what are you doing wearing a bathing suit? Hey, this is what we do. We preach. We yell at you. That’s what we do, you know. But preaching has fallen on hard times ’cause people don’t like to be told what to do. People like dialog, not monologue, and people we’re told don’t have a long attention span.

The average sermon’s about 20 to 25 minutes, okay. Not here. I’m saying in general. Here we call that the introduction. That’s the introduction. We are very long – I am very long – I can say we’re a long-winded church. I’m a long-winded guy, okay, and you know that. But preaching sometimes takes time. The reason why so many sermons are short, they say that a television show minus the commercials is 22 minutes, so most people say well, you should only preach 22 minutes. Why? I don’t care what Friends is doing. You know, I don’t care. I don’t care if it takes 22 minutes to marry a millionaire. I don’t care because sometimes preaching and teaching the Bible takes time. And TV that has an attention span of 22 minutes, you can’t teach much. You can’t accomplish much. You can’t do much in 22 minutes. You can’t. Preaching takes time. Instruction takes time. Teaching takes time, but a lot of people say I’m so busy doing the wrong things, wasting my life I don’t have time to learn anything about how to fix it, so could you hurry? You have an hour, and the clock’s ticking and everybody gets up and goes.

I wanna thank you for enduring, maybe not listening, but enduring. You guys put up with teaching. You put of with preaching. And the deal with preaching is this. Preaching is – it’s really less motivation speaking and it’s more boxing, okay. I come in here, and I come at you, and you resist me. And we do it for an hour until you cry uncle or give me the finger or send me hate mail or something. But we’re gonna do this. We’re gonna get into this. And preaching, first thing it does, it offends you. He said I’m wicked. Son of a – I am. I just cussed him out. He got me. Now I’m really mad!

You know, that’s the first thing it does. It exposes our sin. That’s why in the Old Testament the primary preachers were the prophets, and they were killed. Okay, that’s my job. If I do this really well, I’ll die. You know, you think about that. All the guys I respect got killed, including the God I preach about.

Preaching, the first thing it does, it offends you. It dethrones men and women, and exalts God, and it points out sin. And because of that, there’s stiff resistance. People don’t like that. They get so mad. He offended me. Yeah, but see, you know what? Preaching when done rightly, it first offends you, and then it calls you to repentance, and then it restores you so that you can be a new person, not an old person just trying to excuse yourself. That’s what preaching does.

Preaching is so important. It was so weird to me this week when I was out in New York teaching. The Northeast is so weird in that there’s churches everywhere, but there’s no preachers. It’s really weird. And the buildings are empty. I had one guy come up to me. He says, “We got 8 acres, 120-seat building, a house, and $120,000.00. We have 30 people who love Jesus.” I said what do you need me for? He said, “We can’t find anybody who will preach the Bible. Do you know anybody who will preach the Bible?”

Another guy come up. He said, “I have a building, seats 200 people, paid for like the other guys, and I have $500,000.00 in the bank, and we have about 20, 30 people, and we need to find a Bible teacher, but I can’t find a Bible teacher, so I’m gonna be the Bible teacher. Can you help me?” Nice guy named Andy. You can pray for him. He’s a mailman. I told him, I said that’s – I was thinking about it. That’s actually a pretty good job, really, ‘cause you get the mail and deliver it. That’s what I do, you know? This is a letter. I deliver. I don’t write the mail, don’t edit the mail. I just deliver the mail. I said this – you could be the yelling mailman. You know, you’re onto something. And for $500,000.00 you could make some mistakes and figure out as you go.
What we’re dealing with all of these churches in this area – Apparently, at some point, somebody opened the Bible, preached, people got together, paid for a building. Somebody stopped preaching. Everybody left, and now there’s just a building there. It needs a preacher. This happens all the place. That’s all over Ballard this is happening. I mean, there’s a new church just went for sale nearby.

At the center of the church is the risen Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the heart of the church, and next to him needs to be a guy who’s got the Bible open, the preacher, pointing to Jesus. Everything comes from there. Jesus say, “If I be lifted up, I’ll draw all men unto myself.” The way you get a church is Jesus is alive and well. He’s God. He conquered sin and death, and the guy opens the Bible and points to Jesus, and then everybody comes running and goes, hey, look at that. That’s Jesus. And then they go get their friends. Next thing you know, we got 2,000 people. This is how we do this. This is how we do this. We open the Bible, point to Jesus, people come, they wanna learn about Jesus. As long as we don’t get in the way and encumber their view, things will continue to go very, very, very well.

That’s what good preaching is. Good preaching is simply nothing more than opening the Scriptures and pointing people to Jesus ’cause he’s the one who loves, saves, heals, redeems. He’s the one who gets all the work done. He’s the one who we all worship and adore and follow and emulate, and that’s all about Jesus. Good preaching gets to Jesus, so it’s not just preaching. It’s the preaching of the Word of God, okay. Two things in the Scriptures are called the Word, Jesus and the Bible. That’s how God speaks to us. That’s God’s Word to us is Scripture and Jesus, and the whole point of the Scripture, the whole point of the Word of God is Jesus.

If somebody’s preaching, but you’re not getting Jesus or the Bible, you’re not getting a biblical sermon, okay. A biblical sermon is about Jesus. It doesn’t matter what page, you know. When Jesus rose from death in Luke 24, he opens the Old Testament, and he takes them through it, and he says it’s all about me. The Old Testament about me. He’s arguing with the false teachers in John, chapter 5, the Pharisees in his day, and he says you study the Scriptures thinking that in them you’ll find eternal life. These are the Scriptures that point to me, but you guys don’t love me. You missed the whole point of the Bible. The whole point of the Bible is Jesus. That’s the point.

If you’re here and you’re not a Christian, you need to read the Scriptures and get to know Jesus. Start with John’s gospel. That’s Jesus’ very best friend, lived his life with Jesus, was an eyewitness to his life. Read the Word of God for yourself. Get to know Jesus. That’s the point of the Bible. The point of the Bible is to reveal Jesus, who’s God and King, and for you to love him because he has loved you. That’s the point.

And when we talk about the Word of God, what we’re talking about is something that is perfect. Psalm 119 talks about that “the law of the Lord is perfect.” Jesus says, “Sanctify them by the truth,” in John 17. “Your Word is truth.” We’re talking about the truth as opposed to all the lies and speculation and conjecture. In Peter we’re told that the Scriptures, the Word of God, is like food that nourishes an infant. In the Psalms as well, we’re told it’s like a lamp that lights the path of our life so that we can find our way to God and good life with God.

It says in Hebrews that Word of God is living and active, “sharper than a doubled-edged sword.” It cuts us open and exposes our heart and our motives and our intentions and our will. And the first thing it does, it causes pain, but it’s trying to extricate sin and pride from us. So it cuts us open so that we can be healed and cancer can be taken out. And then the spirit of God and life can be placed in, that the Scriptures are perfect, it tells us over in 2 Timothy 3. We looked at it earlier. All Scripture is God-breathed. It’s how God speaks to us. It’s how God reveals himself to us. It’s how we know who God is and what God’s done and what God wants, and it’s through the Word of God.

That’s way Isaiah 55 says when God’s Word goes forth, it’s powerful. It accomplishes what it was sent and intended to do, that God’s Word never goes out and doesn’t do something. It always does something because the Word of God is written by the spirit of God, and the Word of God then is accompanied with the power of God. Very, very, very miraculous thing we’re talking about.

That’s why Romans tells us that faith comes through the hearing of the Word of God. Faith comes through the hearing of the Word of God. People who are not preached to and are not preached the Word of God do not come to faith, and if they have faith, they cannot grow in faith apart from the proclamation of the Word of God. They can’t. It’s an auditory miracle that God does. You get to hear the Word of God. That births faith and life and hope and love and joy in you. My job is to preach. Your job is to heed and to listen.

Three and a half thousand churches in the United States of America close every year. Today that means 10 churches will die. The only reason I can see why a church would die is because there is no one in the middle of the church with the Bible open pointing to Jesus. If that continually happens, other things will work themselves out because the spirit of God works through the Word of God and the power of God accompanies the spirit of God, and work will continue to make itself successful and productive, and it will continue the health and the longevity of the church.

But I’ll tell you what, and I guess this is where I’m going is some of you are gonna leave Mars Hill. You’re gonna move away. You’re gonna hate me. You don’t hate me, but if you stick around, you will. You’ll go. You know, these are gonna happen. Here’s what I really care about. Maybe you don’t like me. You don’t like my sense of humor. Maybe you don’t like the church. It’s too big. It’s too small. It’s too dark. It’s too light. I’m too young. I’m too old. I’m too short. I’m too tall. We’ve had people leave for all these reasons.

Whatever it is, make sure, please make sure, you go to a church that preaches the Bible. Would you just do that? I’m not the only guy in the city that preaches the Bible. There’s some other guys who preach the Bible, and I thank God for them. Go to a church that preaches the Bible. Go to a church that preaches the Bible and that you learn about Jesus. That’s the only place you will have health and life and growth. That’s it.

You know, there’s a church not too far from here. It’s pastored by a dear friend of mine. It’s up on Queen Anne. He’s a dear, dear, dear friend. And he and I were talking one time because he was wanting to start his church, and he’s a good Bible teacher, and he loves Jesus, and we visited a church. We snuck into a local church that was dying. Two pastors sneaking into a church. It’s like some bad joke. We’re just missing a rabbi.

So we sneak into the church and this is before he started his church and he said – we were up front. He said, “Why do you think this church died?” And I looked at the pulpit. It was down to about five or six people, and there was a sermon that had been downloaded from Yahoo! on the pulpit, which Yahoo! is not the Greek word for Holy Spirit. This guy had not been with God. And I looked at it, and it was just page after page. What the guy would do is he would get up and he’d download the sermon from Yahoo! on Sunday morning, and he’s read it word for word while everybody got up and left the church. And he did this for years, and all of the sudden there’s nobody left. I told this guy, I told my buddy, I said, “Well, this guy obviously is not a guy who’s preaching the Word.” I said, “You know, this is a good lesson for us both as young men. We need to preach the Word or else we’re gonna end up like this guy someday.”

You think about it, guys. All the churches that are dead, dying, closing, declining, struggling, failing, what happened? Somebody started preaching there, and the thing got off to a good start. The building to be housed. People started coming, and then all the sudden somebody apparently closed the book and stopped talking about Jesus. And why be a church, why get together if there’s no Jesus. Why get together if we’re not gonna learn something. Why get together if we’re not gonna be transformed and see people go from death to life? Why in the world would we do this whole thing called Christianity? It’s just silly. It’s easier to just stay home and eat Ding Dongs and watch TV and have friends over for dinner. I mean, why?

Preaching is so important because it forces you to sit there for awhile and listen. It’s a good discipline. And some of you, your ADD kicks in. You need a seatbelt. You’re all freaked out, twitching. You know, is he done, is he done, is he done? No, he’s not even warmed up. He’s just, he’s just getting going. It’s gonna be awhile. Didn’t you bring breakfast? Didn’t your friend tell you? It’s your first time?

The preaching of the Bible, that is so – I tell you guys this is my heart, okay. This is me. This is what I do. This is what I care about. I love the Scriptures. I believe every Word. I love Jesus. I love to open the Bible, and I love to teach. I love to preach. I love to make sure that we’re a church that’s in the Bible. And the preaching of the Word means this. It doesn’t mean the preaching of the topics that the pastor finds particularly insightful that week.

We go through books of the Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. Occasionally, we’ll do a topic, and usually I get a bunch of nasty e-mails. I did a topical series awhile back. I started to get e-mails. I mean, the two things I’ve done that have gotten more nasty e-mails than anything is when I did topical sermons and critiqued he WNBA. Unbelievable. You’re all apparently women’s basketball fundamentalists or something. I don’t know what, you know.

But even when I was preaching – we had time to fill, so I was doing a topical series. I started getting hate mail. What are you doing? Where’s the book of the Bible? I had a non-Christian send me an e-mail or a letter – I don’t remember – saying, “You said we’d go through books of the Bible. You’re just doing topics. I don’t know how you’re putting the verses together. You could be lying to me. I’m sick of this.” The non-Christian cussing me out for not being biblical. I thought okay, gotcha.

So we just go through books of the Bible so you’ll learn the Bible, not just theology, that you’ll learn Scripture, not just an interpretation. And I am convinced of this, that pastors who don’t go through books of the Bible do so for a nefarious reason. I think there’s certain things they don’t wanna deal with. I think it’s cowardice. I’m not saying all topical preaching is bad.

But as you go through the Bible, you’re gonna deal with things that maybe you wouldn’t wanna deal with. We’re gonna deal with sex, gonna deal with kids, gonna deal with money. We gotta deal with things that, ahhh, people are gonna get mad. They’re gonna get upset, so we’ll do Part 27 on how to be successful. We’ll proof text a few things from Leviticus. I’ll tell you a poem story, make you cry. We’ll show you a picture of a bunny and then we’ll give you a water bottle and a latte and call it church, and you go home bunny, water bottle, latte. I like that guy. I didn’t feel bad. Didn’t convict me. Didn’t say hell or sin or it’s your fault. I love that guy.

That’s not the proclamation of the Word of God. And I’m still convinced that some people don’t preach certain books of the Bible because they don’t wanna offend their people, so instead they offend God by not talking about things that he talks about. Or perhaps they’re not a good father, so we’re not gonna talk about fathering. I’m not a good husband. I’m not gonna talk about marriage. I’m not good with my money. We’re not gonna talk about money. I’m not a good worker. We won’t talk about work. I’m a good golfer. Let’s do Christianity’s like golf, Part 34. And so all the sudden you got a whole series on golfing Jesus, and you guys think I’m kidding, which I kind of am, but I’m kind of not. I’m kind of not.

We go through the Bible because we wanna preach the Word. Look for a church that preaches the Word, okay. If you go from here, go somewhere that preaches the Word. I dealt with one pastor, was an interesting conversation. I said, “So you do topics. How do you know what to talk on because if I do topics, I don’t know what to talk about. I don’t know where to start, where to end. You know, the Bible’s got 66 books. There’s a lot there. I don’t know where to start.”

He said, “Well, usually I go out walking my dog, and whatever strikes me, that’s what I talk about.” Literally, this is what the guy tells me. I’m thinking so you get hit by an Isuzu. All of the sudden it’s, you know, today we’re talking about Isuzus ‘cause I got hit by a car. It struck me as I was walking the dog. And what that allows, that just allows circumstances and disgruntled people and whatever you’re feeling. Hey, I had Mexican food, and I had an epiphany, and so I’m gonna talk about that. It’s like God’s like a burrito. No, he’s not. Don’t do that, you know.

You wanna go where the Bible’s open, Bible’s preached, Bible’s taught, preach the Word. That’s what you want. And he tells them then be prepared. You prepare people and you prepare ourselves through the study and the preaching of the Word. The way that a pastor gets prepared to do work in season, out of season all the time is by regularly being in the Bible preaching and teaching. That’s why I preach all the time. It is healthy and good for me.

And I’ll tell you what. The pastor can’t rightly preached the Word of God until he has been worked over by the Word of God. When I have my devotional time, I put a cup on. I put a mouthpiece in. I put a helmet on. Then I pick up the Bible ‘cause I know what’s gonna happen, right? You can’t open the Word of God without being convicted and getting God coming all at you like sin, sin, sin, repentance, repentance, repentance. You’re like okay, all right, gotcha. And then the pastor’s gotta do his work with God, and then he can get up and he can teach the people. That’s how I get prepared. Preaching forces me to be in the Bible all the time. That prepares me for whatever might happen in this church.

The pastor doesn’t preach the Bible, he’s not prepared for anything else, not prepared for anything else. In season, out of season. Here’s what a good sermon, a good preacher, a good pastor will do. They’ll correct. Some of you love God, and you’re off track. You’re off track, so it’s the loving arm of correction. Whoa, whoa, whoa, come back here. What are you doing?

Some need rebuke. It’s the right hand of fellowship. It’s not the open hand. It’s the right fist. It’s the, you know, knock that off. It’s the right hand of fellowship to the jaw of unrighteousness is what it is. It’s the rebuke. Some of you come in and you go man, I feel like I got punched. Praise God.

And for some of you it’s encouragement. You love God. You’re obeying God. You’re walking with God. You love Jesus, and life sometimes is just really hard and complicated. You don’t need correction ‘cause you’re not off track. You don’t need rebuke. You’re not rebelling. You just need encouragement.

A good pastor, a Bible teacher, a good preacher will do all of those things, sometimes in the same sermon. I see people come up and they say thank you. That was correctional. Some of you come up and say thank you, I needed that. I was really messing around with God. Other people come up and say thank you, that was encouraging. I appreciate the embrace. Thank you.
And that’s what good preaching and teaching does. Sometimes it corrects. Sometimes it rebukes. Sometimes it encourages. That’s what we get from the Scriptures. With great patience – it takes awhile to teach people. That’s why a sermon takes an hour plus-ish, and that’s why you need to know that your life’s not gonna get fixed with one good sermon, but it’s the habitual life practice of walking with God, learning with God. It takes patience and careful instruction, and I fear for churches where the pastor is no studious, is not in Scripture, is not devoted to sound doctrine because then they get up and they teach or they preach and maybe even they use the Word of God, but it’s not careful instruction. It’s not thoughtful. It’s not put together in a prudent way, so they’re speculating and they’re conjecturing, and they’re off track.

Okay, I wanna show you guys why this is so important practically. Some of you are visual so a little chart. You’re all happy now. I got a chart. There you go. Here’s how it works. There is God. Here’s God who causes an event to happen: parting the Red Sea, virgin birth, Jesus walks on water, feeds a multitude, miracles, all kinds of things. He inspires Solomon to write Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon. He inspires David and the other poets to pen the Psalms. An event, something happens.

That then is recorded in Scripture, right? 2 Timothy 3, “Scripture is breathed of God.” God helped somebody to write this down. It’s human beings and God in partnership writing this down in a perfect way. What happens then is you and I pick up the Bible and we interpret it. What does this mean? What does this mean for me? What is God trying to say here? What does this mean for us as a church? How does this apply to my life?

Now the problem is this. Preaching falls into a few ruts. There is a kind of preaching that ignores the Bible and just says we don’t really need the Bible. We’re mystics. We just get sort of unmediated – God just speaks to me. I had a dream. I had a vision. I had a revelation. I have a secret word. I had an experience, and the pastor just talks out of his experience, his mystical encounter, his supernatural insight. It’s just mysticism.

Others come along and that was mysticism. The modern theory over the last few hundred years was arguing over the event. The Bible says a baby was born of a virgin. Hmm, we took a vote. We don’t think that happens. And we have a guy with a PhD, and he wrote a book saying it doesn’t happen. Walking on water? No, Jesus didn’t walk on water. Actually, one commentator says this, very popular commentator, modern commentator. Jesus didn’t walk on the water. He walked on the shore. It looked like he was walking on the water. It was an illusion. Really? ’Cause he got all the way out to the boat. Right?

And they’re arguing over the event. We don’t know if the Red Sea parted. We don’t know if the earth got flooded. We don’t – you know, they’re arguing over the event. You know, there was a church not too long had a conference that was explaining how we know that Jesus didn’t rise from death ’cause those things don’t happen. That’s unusual. Duh! It’s unusual. It’s a miracle. That’s why it’s a big deal. You know, virgins having kids and people coming back from the dead, you make a note of that. That’s different.

So sometimes, you know, the sermon is about explaining away things that the Bible just says happened. But now we’ve got this other issue and that’s this. In our post-modern time it’s all about the interpreter. The interpreter has authority over the Scriptures and every other text, and what do you think? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you think? I don’t know. Sin, you think sin means sin? No, sin means monkey, and we have our own interpretation. We have our own perspective. Oh, it says repent. Repent means eat cookie. Oh, is that Greek? Yes. And it’s just …

So what happens is is preaching sometimes is just the pastor’s mystical encounter. I had a burrito and saw Jesus. Sometimes it’s the we’re not sure he rose from the dead. I don’t know. It says it, but I don’t – we just fight the text. We ignore the text. We explain it away. Oh, it’s primitive. They’re all primitive. We’ve evolved now. We have remote controls and Viagra. We’re so much smarter than they are. They were all sitting in the woods and, you know, writing on trees and sitting around completely – we’ve evolved theologically. Now, we’re smart. Look at us. We’re so developed. We can sit around all day and play videogames. Boy, you know, they were nothing like us. It’s this arrogance of theological evolution that wants to argue with a primitive text.

Or then we get the post-modern that’s like hey, I got an idea. Let’s change the meaning and go to Hell. Hey, yeah! And when Paul tells Timothy is this. He says, you know, preach the …

Response: Word.

Word. Open the Bible. What’s the Bible say? We do not know who God is. We do not know what God says apart from the Bible. We don’t. God has chosen how to speak to us. We have to receive the way he’s intended to communicate. We don’t know what happened in certain events: parting the Red Sea, virgin birth, resurrection. We don’t know what happened in an event apart from …

Response: The Bible.

The Word. It tells us what happened. And we don’t even know what the right interpretation and meaning of a particular verse is apart from the Word of God. Scripture interprets Scripture. Scripture describes event. Scripture reveals mind of God. Okay, don’t, don’t, don’t believe the hype. There’ll be all kinds of different trends and fads. We are a Bible-believing, Jesus-loving church. That’s what we are.

Response: Amen.

People are gonna “I had a thing” or “I’m not sure” or “I have a new angle.” Well, I got an open Bible. That’s what we do. We do the Jesus of the Bible, period. Don’t get off track of that. Don’t get off track of that.

I was at a conference. I’ve done conferences with young pastors, so early on in the church I went to a conference, and it was the whole sort of post-modern, hip, cool thing. All the high-fiving, antisocial White guys get together and are gonna change the world. We all get together, and then the whole thing is well, let’s talk about our interpretations. Next thing you know and the conversation, and the big debate is this. Now books are being written it if you could believe that. Is God a woman and does God know the future? Like what the, what in the world are we doing?

God is Father and he knows you’re going to Hell tomorrow. Yeah, what are you talking about? Well, we got this person. They wrote a book talking about, you know, reimagining God in the mother vision, and then all of the sudden now, we think God doesn’t know the future. God’s just sitting there going oh, my gosh. Can somebody help? I need a pilot, you know, and it’s just like what in the world? There are certain things that you just don’t get off track if your Bible’s open and you’re going to Jesus. It just keeps you going.

Now, here’s why this stuff gets so popular: the mysticism, the modernism, the post-modernism, the interpreter of the event, the supernatural encounter, the hey, we don’t have a Bible, but we’ll talk about a film clip or, you know, Jesus spoke to me through the television show Friends, and so we’re gonna talk about that. Just here’s why this junk happens.

He tells us in the next section. It’s brilliant “for the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.” Duh, so that’s how you get a book deal. That’s how you get to be a radio personality. That’s how you get to do all this stuff. “Instead, to suit their own desires they will gather around them a great number of teachers.” Whole section of Barnes & Noble. Vast majority of cable channels. Vast majority of AM talk radio to say what their itching ears wanna hear.

God says, “You’re the problem. Repent.” People say, “No. Any other options?” Well, there’s this guy, wrote a book, says that you’re brilliant, and you get to do what you wanna do. Really? You’re kidding, $29.95? That’s all? I could cheat on my wife or cheat on my taxes or I can cuss out God or I could pick a new God for $29.95? What a deal. That’s great. I close my ears to the truth. I open this ear to what I wanna hear. I’m looking around going would somebody tell me what I wanna hear? Somebody says exactly what you wanna hear and you go they’re brilliant. They think just like me, brilliant. I knew there was somebody out there that told me that I could do exactly what I wanna do and believe what I wanna believe. Brilliant! $29.95. Thank you, Satan, thank you.

You know and here’s the deal. If you accept the Scriptures and their rebuke, you will still have teaching and authority. Everyone does. I don’t believe in religion. I don’t believe in authority. I went to college and the philosophy professor said so. Ugh! It’s not church. It’s college, and it’s not pastor. It’s philosophy professor. It’s always gonna be some person who’s in a position of authority preaching something that you’re going to embrace. It’s either gonna be truth from Bible or it will be something that your itching ears wanna hear.

Here’s my point. Watch who you listen to. Who do you go to for counsel? Who do you respect? Who do you like? You young guys that like studying theology, great. Praise God. But be really good at your Bible first. I have guys come to me. This author’s great, and I agree with everything he says. He’s not in the Bible. Everything he says isn’t right. He has mistakes.

I’ve got a book coming out. Find the mistakes. They’re in there. Not intentionally. That’s always the problem. You know, guys come to me. I read the Westminster. It’s perfect. It’s great. There’s no mistakes. Read it again. There are some mistakes in the Westminster Confession, the Heidelberg Confession. There are mistakes in everything but the Bible. Some big, some small, some major, some minor, but guess what. Don’t just have itching ears that want somebody to tell you exactly what you wanna hear and then believe that everything they say is great, good and grand because no one, myself including, is without error. Only your Bible is without error, so we’ve gotta be discriminating. We’ve gotta be discerning.

And if we have itching ears instead of discerning ears, we get ourselves into grave danger and trouble. We’ll end up turning our ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths, speculation, human insight, opinions, conjecture, things that don’t come from God but just come from human guess. Here’s my point. You need to be very careful who you take information from. Who do you respect? Who do you esteem? Who do you listen to? Radio, TV, media, friend, family. Who speaks into your life? Who informs you? Who instructs you and should they be?

There’s a propensity for us all when we are in sin to justify it and to excuse it. That’s why we pick out certain people, right. How many of you ladies, your husband ticks you off. You call that friend. Some of you ladies softly chuckle, like oh. Tom’s driving me nuts. He’s drive – oh, girl, I know girl. All right. You call that friend ’cause you know that friend is gonna agree with you. You should smack him around. You should nag him, cuss him out. You should let him have it. I will, thank you. That’s exactly what I was thinking. That was brilliant. Thank you so much. How’s your divorce going? Good, honey. Okay, I’m praying for you, all right.

Be careful. Be careful. You don’t just select as experts people who agree with you. Because careful that you select as experts people who agree with Scripture, people who will preach the Word. Tom’s driving me nuts. Girl, you gotta quit nagging him. You talk too much, right? Somebody give you a little preaching, good for you.

We have a propensity to justify ourselves with people who claim to be experts. That’s how they get a following and a crowd. Am I against reading? No. Am I against talk radio? No. Am I against media? No. But those people that are worth listening to and allowing to preach into your life are people who are biblical, who love Jesus, who will tell you to repent of sin and trust in him and not just justify your state of life, and that’s the truth.

And it doesn’t matter what silly, stupid, crazy, nefarious thing you wanna do, there’s a book somewhere to justify it. I mean, I challenge any of you to come up with something wicked that a book hasn’t been written to justify. I was thinking about it. I can’t think of anything. I can’t think of anything that if you wanna do some expert somewhere has not published a book with some decent-sounding argument that will back up whatever it is that you wanna do.

So you wanna be under the Scripture, and you wanna be very careful that you don’t have itching ears, but you have discerning ears that aren’t just pursuing people that are brilliant because they agree with but are pursuing truth that sometimes confronts you and calls you to repentance. My job is to preach. Your job is to embrace the truth, respond to the truth and test everything that I say by Scripture to make sure that I’m not another guy just gathering a crowd to do the itching ear thing.

He goes on, “But you” – here’s the good news. There’s all kinds of weird teaching, false doctrine, bizarre spirituality but you, how about you? What about me? This is to Timothy but applies to us all. “Keep your head in all situations.” Churches and pastors that don’t keep their head just goes crazy. We’re onto this issue. Everybody’s excited. Now we’re bored. Another issue, another fad, another trend, another moral cause, another election, another thing, another this, another that, just ride the roller coaster. What about this? We gotta deal with this. What about this? Paul says Timothy, keep the Bible open. Hold the rudder. Find north. Keep going to Jesus. Keep your head. Don’t freak out. Don’t stress out. Don’t get off mission. Don’t get off topic. Don’t close the Bible and allow all these pseudo-crises to distract the mission of the church, and they are continual.

It’s amazing. It seems like every week there’s another thing. It’s an emergency! It’s a crisis! We gotta meet. We gotta do this. There’s a thing. There’s a this. There’s a that. There’s a blah, blah, blah, blah. A week later, you’re like what was that? I don’t know. We don’t remember. It was the most important thing in the world, but we don’t remember what it was because fads and trends and pseudo-crises come and go. And if you don’t keep your head, you’re gonna get totally off mission. You’re gonna get totally off Jesus. The Bible will not be setting your agenda. All of the pseudo-crises and faux trends will. Keep your head. Endure hardship. This is what having the Bible open enables you to do.

If you obey the Word of God, will your life be filled with hardship? Yes. How many of you, you were told accept Jesus and everything will be better? Okay, they lied. They actually violated the Bible trying to get you to be a Christian. Accept Jesus and die like him. That is more of a biblical truth. Now here’s the point. Is there a shortcut to holy, good life? There’s not. There’s no shortcut. Hardship is required for those who want to live a good life with God. There’s no shortcut. But every faux expert, every latest trendmaker, it comes up with a shortcut.

That’s why we have 57 million diet books and 27 million spirituality books, right? Eat mangos and you’ll look skinny. It’ like, you know, it’s gonna take more than mangos ‘cause if you wash the mangos down with a Krispy Kreme donut and a jug of milk, you know, you’re gonna be in the same place. Take this pill and then all of the sudden you’ll be smart. No, you won’t. You’ll be broke. They know you’re not smart. That’s why they’re selling you stuff to make you smart, right?

You see how this works. Everybody’s looking for a shortcut. I got this wife and she has clothes on and she talks. We gotta fix this. It’s a crisis. Well, they have this book, The Naked Mute Wife. I read the book, and it’s not working. We gotta endure hardship. You have to take her out to dinner and buy her a house, you know? You’re gonna have to endure hardship.

Like I read the book about discipline and the child. I whipped the child, but then the child sinned the very next day. I used a spoon. I, what, get a shovel? What do I whack him with? You gotta endure. You gotta hang in there. It’s gonna be awhile. People come in all the time. Hey, I need biblical counsel. Here it is. They come back 15 minutes later. It didn’t work. Well, that’s because we’re talking about a lifestyle change, not just a, you know, a motivational message that if you do two things, everything works out forever. This isn’t the sitcom version of reality. This is reality, and sometimes you gotta endure hardship. You gotta get through it. There are some things, friends, simply you cannot get around. You gotta go through. And on the other side there’s blessing and joy and life, but you gotta get through them.

“Do the work of an evangelist.” Here’s what happens. Churches that don’t have the Bible open don’t see people come to Christ. If we open the Bible, preach Jesus, love Jesus, serve Jesus, follow Jesus, non-Christians come ’cause Jesus says, “If you lift me up, I’ll draw a crowd. I’ll draw all men unto myself.” Many churches say we need more people. We wanna grow. We want people to become Christians. Okay, great. I’m all for it. Then preach the Bible. Then preach the Bible. Don’t focus on training people to do evangelism. First, preach the Bible.

Here’s the deal. Every week you guys gets trained on how to do evangelism. Every week I try – I’m not always great at it – I try to open the Bible, deal with sin, get you to Jesus. That’s what I try and do. That’s my hope and goal. That is evangelism. Taking people, addressing sin, bringing them to Jesus through the Bible. That’s it. That’s it. Do you know that evangelism is connected to Scripture. That’s why if you have non-Christian friends and family, give them a Bible. Tell them to start in John. The work of an evangelist is knowing the Scriptures, loving Jesus and then sharing the love of Jesus and truth of Scripture with people that aren’t yet Christians. How many of you would love to see more people become Christians? I would.

I remember what it was like being a non-Christian. I’m 33. I got saved at 19. I still haven’t even spent half of my life as a Christian. I was thinking about it. Man, praise God for my lovely wife. She was the evangelist for me. She loved Jesus. She bought me a Bible. She pointed me to Christ. I started reading. First thing I got was that I was terrible, and Jesus was God, and he’d fix me. Started reading the Bible, meet Jesus. She’s my evangelist. Who is your evangelist? Who shared Jesus with you? Who gave you your first Bible? You wanna do that work. That’s good work, loving people, giving them Bibles, pointing them to Jesus. That’s good work. You wanna do that work. That’s the work of an evangelist, but you can’t do that unless you know the Bible to answer their questions and have confidence that Jesus is God and he can take care of them.

You think about it. I told you at the beginning, Paul’s sitting in a hole. They’re gonna chop his head off. He gets to write the last things that are on his heart and mind. I asked you what would you write? Would you write read the Bible and love non-Christians? Is that what you have written? That’s what Paul writes. That’s what’s on Paul’s heart. Christians need to read the Bible and love non-Christians so that they’ll become Christians. That’s what’s on his heart. That’s what he cares about. That’s what he’s lived for. That’s what he’s gonna die for.

“And discharge all the duties of your ministry,” he tells Timothy. Paul in this letter is discharging all the duties of his ministry. He hands it to Timothy and tells Timothy pick it up and run and hand it off to someone else. Any of you ever been discharged from a hospital? When you’re discharged, you’re on your own. Go. If you need follow-up or treatment, let us know, but go. Ministry being discharged means this. It belongs to you.

I’ll tell you something. You are Mars Hill Church. The ministry of Mars Hill Church is not something that you pay pastors to do. It’s something that pastors train you to do. You are ministers. You have ministry. It is discharged to you. You’re gonna go from here, and you’re gonna do ministry. Gonna love people and open the Bible and pray and work your job and pay your bills and love your spouse, and you’re gonna do your life. That’s your ministry. That’s your ministry, and it’s discharged to you.

It’s amazing to me. I was incredibly convicted thinking why does Paul need to say this? I mean, aren’t we glad that he’s not in a hole saying, “Well, it’s me Paul. I’m in a hole. They’re gonna chop my head off. It’s so sad that Christianity has to come to an end. I don’t know how you’ll get on without me. Most of the New Testament, that’s mine. So sad. Everyone else gets to go to Hell. Did I tell you I’m in a hole?” You know, Paul doesn’t say that. Paul doesn’t say, “Oh, I’m gonna die. We’re done. Everybody back to your homes. We’re done.”

What Paul says is no, this is gonna keep going. And you know what? It has. It got from Paul in a hole in Rome to Ballard 2,000 years later. That tells you that somewhere along the way, the work of the ministry has been faithfully discharged repeatedly to get all the way to the Ballard Bridge. I mean, you know, somebody did something in the middle there. Somebody loved Jesus and was opening the Bible and pointing to him and doing the work of an evangelist, and somehow it has continued to go because the spirit of God works through the Word of God that honors the Son of God and comes in the power of God. It’s back to the Scripture, and it’s back to the Lord Jesus.

Here’s the point. Many churches do not have people doing ministry for two reasons from the pastor’s perspective. One, here’s the sad honest truth, pastors are prone to be proud and selfish. That’s the truth, okay? That’s the truth. Pastors are prone to be proud and selfish. Proud thinking “I’m the only one who can do anything here. They’re all meatheads. You people, you’re dumb. You’re gonna ruin everything that I’ve worked hard to build. You can’t do a thing. I gotta take care of everything around here.” And proud. “You need me. It’s all hanging on me. You can’t live without me. I’m the most important thing here.”

Pride, selfishness. Selfishness in that “I need you to love me. I need you to affirm me. I need you to need me. I need you to like me.” Don’t be fooled. That is what drives a vast number of leaders, an insecurity that needs to be emotionally necessary. I could still remember at this church early on, I prided myself on doing everything. Open the door, photocopy the notes, preach the sermon, haul the woofers. I would try and do everything. Pride. Can’t let anybody do it. They won’t do it right. And selfishness. Look at me. I can do everything.

The fact of the matter is there are a lot of things that I’m no good at. The fact o the matter is you all have gifts appointed by the Sovereign Spirit of God that are absolutely necessary for our ministry to be discharged from Mars Hill into the earth. And the truth is a lot of you have no need of me at all. There are people in this room that are so much more skilled and talented and capable and gifted than I am in such a great number of areas. Only arrogance would not permit me to enable them to do that.

Why would I have someone not do something that’s better than me? Well, the only reason would be pride. Why would I not allow anyone to do everything. Why would I only allow people to be served by me and not to serve one another? That would be selfishness. They all need me. I’m very important. They can’t live without me.

I still remember Pastor Jamie. About a year ago, there was an event coming up at the chuch, and I said okay, what time you need me there? He said – God bless Jamie – he said, “We don’t really need you.” All right, so I guess I won’t go. But I thought I was very important. We don’t really need you. That is a healthy church. That’s a healthy church. Many of you guys don’t need me.

There are some things I’m terrible at. I have never opened Excel. I can’t organize anything. If I was in charge of our Web site, we would have an Etch-a-Sketch duct taped to the door. That’s as close as we would get to a Web site. No one wants to hear me sing. It sounds like I’ve been captured by al-Qaida. I mean, it’s just bad. And I am perhaps the world’s worst small group leader. We had a small group at my house as a new church, met for six months. Six months into it, somebody said hey, could we pray for each other? I was like that seems reasonable. I never thought of that. I never – come in. I talk for two hours. You go home. What else you need? Oh, you guys wanna talk with each other? Crazy idea. We could try it. I don’t know.

You know, counseling. I am the worst counselor in the history of the world. People come in. Here’s how I do counseling. I have a stopwatch. Okay, I’m gonna say go. You name your sins. Go! Okay, stop doing that! Next! That’s all I got. I don’t know. I’m doing drugs. Don’t! I don’t know.

I mean, the other day, literally, the counseling pastor. His office is across the way from mine. I looked in through the window. He was listening. I thought that is a brilliant move. He listens and then he says something. I never knew. The preacher doesn’t work like that. Gets up, talks, goes home, doesn’t listen to a thing.

The ministry here has been discharged. There are things I don’t even know what we’re doing. You know, people all the time hey, where’s the – I don’t know. I can’t even get into the building. I don’t know the alarm code. Seriously, the other day, I had a friend with me. They were like can I see the building? I’m like, no, I don’t know how to get in. We’ll set off the alarm. We’ll go to jail. I don’t know the code. They didn’t tell me. They told me it’s none of my business. It’s been discharged. I don’t – I have no idea.
There are so many things that I am terrible at, and the reason that Mars Hill is doing well is because I am not involved.

You know and only pride and selfishness would say otherwise. Well, you gotta need me. I’m very important. Nobody could – you know what? I have learned that I am a blessed man surrounded with wonderfully talented, gifted people. I get to do my part, which is preach the Word and make sure that the ministry is discharged, but, but what should happen if I die? I don’t like to think about that. I like to think about me hitting a growth spurt and being drafted. That’s what I like to think about. I don’t like to think about me dying.

And the first time that issue was raised, I think it was at an elders’ meeting. We were buying this building, millions of dollars. One of the guys says, “What happens if you die?” I said, “Hey, we’re not talking about that. I’m losing weight. I’m going to the gym. Get off me. You know, I’m young. I mean, now I’m 33.” I said, “I’m not done. The average man lives to 76. We’ll talk in 42 years. You know, we’ll talk. Until then, we’re not talking.”

This is the issue of succession. So many ministries are run by one man, and when he dies, the ministry dies because the man is the ministry. The ministry has not been discharged. Paul spent 15 years training Timothy. Timothy’s been going. Now he’s just ready to keep going. An elder asked that question. I was with the elders, and they said, “What if you do something stupid, and we have to fire you.” I was like no, we’re not talking about that. I’m not gonna – no, we’re not talking about my potential sin or tragic demise. This is not – we’re not talking about this. I’ll buckle up and chase my wife and live to 80. We’ll talk about this another day. They said, “Well, that’s good for you, but what about this church?” I thought oh, yeah, there’s other people on the planet. I gotta factor that in. Yeah, you’re right. What if I get hit by a car, you know? What if like Elijah I get drawn up in a fiery chariot to the third heaven, and I’m gone? What happens? Which would be cool. You think about it. What are we gonna do?

And so we had to make a plan of succession. It was okay. The elders are gonna preach. They’ll pick up the pulpit, and they made me take out a million-dollar life insurance policy, which means if I die, you get a million bucks. Don’t kill me, but you get a million bucks. So that’s our plan. And the deal is we’re a pastoral team. I’m not senior pastor. I have one vote. I get voted – I get outvoted occasionally. Won’t tell you about what things ’cause I still think they were brilliant. But I get outvoted.

And so the same leaders that are making the decisions will still make the decisions. The same ministries that are being overseen will still be overseen. I don’t oversee any departments. I don’t oversee firing, hiring. There’s a lot I don’t do at this church, and so the ministry’s been discharged. The same leaders that are making the decisions will continue to make the decisions. The doctrine has been set by the team of elders of which I’m privileged to be a part, so I have the same theology. You guys are Christians, and those of you that are members of the church, this is your church home. You know, somebody else, the elders in the church, there’s a few elders that are very good teachers and in most other churches would have the pulpit to themselves. They will get up, and they will open the Bible, and they’ll point to Jesus.

I’ll tell you what. Just ’cause I die doesn’t mean Jesus does. And just ’cause I die doesn’t mean Mars Hill does. I mean Christianity lived through the death of Paul. Certainly, it can endure the death of Mark. Certainly it can. I like to think I’m pretty significant. I don’t have any books of the Bible. Not that big of a deal. Just a regular White guy, you know. And it’ll endure. It’ll be discharged. It’ll keep going. Okay, I plan on being here my whole life. I plan on giving you guys 50 years. I don’t plan on doing anything stupid. I don’t plan on dying, but I’m mortal. Paul is at the end of his life, and he’s handing off his ministry. And it is amazing to me so many guys start a church. So many guys pastor a church, and at the end of their life they don’t know what the succession plan is, okay.

Is it okay for you guys to always ask what happens here if somebody dies? You should know. You’re giving your time, your life, your money, your energy. All these churches are dying and closing. It’s ’cause they didn’t have any plan for the future. You wanna be wise about that. Paul is brilliant about it. He’s handing it off to Timothy, and because of that, it got to us.

Who’s gonna take over your business? What happens to your family if you die? You got a will? You got a life insurance policy? Some of you are serving in ministry. Who are you training? Who are you discharging to? Not just doing it, but who are you training so that there are other people to do the work, and if one of you should leave or die or God should call elsewhere that the work continues? It’s the multiplication and reproduction of the church.

Here’s where he closes, and I love it. “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering.” My life is a glass, and I’m down to the last drop. “And the time has come for my departure.” I’m outta here. Here’s what he says. Wouldn’t you love to say this at the end of your life? “I have fought a good fight.” What a great thing to say at the end. I fought well. They have chopped my head off, but I’m going out fists flying. I fought well. And I love the fact that he continually uses the metaphor through 1 and 2 Timothy that life is a fight. You men should embrace that. Got the world, flesh daily. You got a fight on your hands. You wanna fight. You wanna fight well. You wanna fight hard. You wanna fight to the end. “I have fought a good fight.” He doesn’t say he’s perfect, but it is possible at the end of your life when you’re about done to say, “I fought well. I fought well. I took a few on the jaw, but I never went down. It was a good life.”

Goes on to say, “I have finished the race.” He ran hard to the end. Pastors who retire. I don’t get that. I talk to a guy recently. He’s like, “Yeah, thinking about retiring.” From Christianity? What are you retiring from? I love Jesus, and now I golf. I don’t love Jesus anymore. I golf all the time. You know, if you’ve been serving Jesus your whole life, you don’t spend the last 10 years when you finally learn something retired. Man, you run to the end. You run till you see the tape. You cross at full speed. Guys, I will die in the pulpit. Just so you know, okay, that’s gonna be a weird day. I want you to start to emotionally prepare yourself. I will die in the – this is what I do. I open the Bible and yell at people. That’s what I’m gonna do. I’ll yell at you, and then I’m gonna keel over, and you haul me out and some other young guy get up and pick it up and run from there. Okay, that’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna yell to the end. That doesn’t mean we can’t have a succession plan. We could have both.

A guy can run hard to the end and make sure that he hands it off well. He could do both. That’s what Paul’s doing. I have run my race. And I love the fact it doesn’t say, “Oh, gosh. I hit 65, had a midlife crisis, got a Corvette, ended up at Hooters.” You know, he stuck the course. So many guys hit 50, 60, pull up lame, midlife crisis, freaking out, nervous breakdown, hot secretary, total stupidity. “I ran my race to the end.” You guys wanna set before youself the goal of running to the end and fighting until you’re dead.

And he says, “I’ve kept the faith.” I love Jesus. I’m still in relationship with Jesus. He loves me. I know who I’ve believed in. I know where I’m going. Everything’s great. They’re gonna chop – aren’t you glad he’s not in the hole saying, “I thought God loved me. I thought God was good. I’m in a hole. It’s a bad hole. The guy next to me’s got a big hole. I got a small hole. Why do bad things happen to good people? They’re gonna chop my head off. I don’t even have a house. I don’t have kids. I don’t have a wife. This is terrible. I’m depressed. Bring me meds.” Doesn’t say that! “I kept the faith.” I’m still a Christian, and I’m in the presence of God. Ahh.

Here’s how he ends. I love this. Now, what happens when you die? “There is in store for me the crown of righteousness.” Paul’s not boasting. Jesus is his righteousness, and there’s a crown. It’s like an athlete running to the end, crossing the finish line, getting the crowd, “which the Lord, the righteous judge” – that’s Jesus – “will award me on that day.” It’s appointed once for a man to die. It is that day, the day of your death.

Here’s the good news. Some people say man, that’s so great. Paul loved God. Paul served God. Paul ran hard to the end. That is awesome. He got a crown. Right now he’s with Jesus. Man. We have this propensity to elevate guys like Paul into like superheroes with red capes. This life and this conclusion to life is available to whom? All. All of us. You plumbers, you stay-at-home moms, you college students, you fourth-graders, all of us, providing you’re longing for his appearing. You’re longing for his appearing. Are you longing to see Jesus?

Here’s his point. You got a guy beaten, broken, bent, in prison, end of his life, gonna chop his head off. He gets a sheet of paper and a pen, and he gets to write his last words. Here’s what he says. Open the Bible, see Jesus on the horizon and run! Run, run, run! Run to the end. Run hard, run fast, run strong. You don’t have time for heretics and false teachers. You don’t have time for selfishness and sin. You don’t have time for rebellion and stupidity. There’s Jesus. If you open the book, you’ll see him. And if you see him, you’ll run. And if you run, he’ll get closer and closer and closer. And one day you’ll cross the finish line. You’ll hear “well done, good and faithful servant. Come into your rest.” You will hear “I love you. I forgive you. I came for you. I am the King. This is your Kingdom. Here is your crown. I am your God. It is finished. You have run well. You have fought well. You have finished well.”

Response: Hallelujah!

And that is what he sees. Paul is at the end of his life, and he sees Jesus more clearly because he has been running passionately every day toward the Lord. And at his death, he is filled with enthusiasm and joy because he sees Jesus, and he’s almost to him. Corinthians says we’ll see him face to face. Paul is gazing at Jesus on the horizon, and he’s running with every breath he has. And his final word to you and me is run, run, run!

And if you opened your Bible and you see that Jesus, that is what your life will be. And at the end, you’ll celebrate his glorious coming. You will receive your crown of righteousness, and you will stand there with Paul by God’s grace.

My job is to preach. Your job is to…

Response: Run.

Run. We don’t have time for sin and heresy. We’re getting to Jesus. We have far more important things to do than waste our time with sin and stupidity. We’re gonna go see the King. We’re gonna enjoy the Kingdom. We’re gonna get our crown.

We’re gonna give you a chance to celebrate. There’s something to celebrate. Endure hardship. Why? You’re getting to Jesus. It’ll be worth it. We want you to spend some time today confessing your sin to Jesus, thanking Jesus, coming to Jesus, perhaps for the first time, for focusing him on your horizon, the author and perfector of your faith, fixing your eyes on him and running with all you got. Passionate, free, zealous just like Paul.

We’re gonna encourage you to take communion, which is remembering Jesus’ body and blood for your sin. That’s how you get your crown of righteousness. You receive the righteousness of Christ through his death on your behalf and his resurrection for your sin. He’s alive and well. He’s he judge of the living and the dead.

And then we’re gonna sing. We’re gonna celebrate. We’re gonna thank Jesus because you know what, friends? As we open the Bible every week, we get a picture of him on the horizon. We get inspired to run. We hold hands and we run together. That’s what makes a church. We all wanna cross that line together. We wanna see him. We wanna be his Kingdom. We invite you to celebrate that today. I’m gonna pray for you. We’re gonna sing. And then you’re gonna leave here, and you’re gonna run, and the ministry’s discharged to you.

Lord Jesus, you are a great God and King. God, I thank you so much that we have the opportunity to run like Paul, to fight like Paul, to finish like Paul, to run to the end. God, so much of life is just worthless wasted time, stupid endeavors and foolish investments of time and energy and money.

Jesus, please, please, please, please keep us in the Scripture and please keep the Scriptures in us. Please keep our eyes fixed on you. May we ever see you on the horizon. Jesus, may we spend our days running to you. We wanna see our King. We wanna enter into our Kingdom.

Jesus, as false teachers and heretics and people who wanna tickle our itching ears come along, please, God, keep us focused that there are far more important things than being innovative, hip, cool or trendy, and that’s to get to Jesus. And please keep us when sin and temptation comes along to try and dissuade us and distract us, please keep our eyes fixed on you, that we have more important things to do than to pull off to the side and to waste days or weeks or months or years sinning. We’re getting to Jesus.

And Jesus, I pray that you would enable us by grace to run well, to fight well, to finish well. And to like Paul discharge all the things that we are doing and care about to others so that the work that we’ve begun, the life that we live, the Jesus that we serve that that would continue forever until you come again.

And Jesus, I thank you that we get to run. It is so great to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning, to have an objective, you, to be running toward. And I thank you that there will be a day when we see you face to face. We will be your people. You will our God, and we will celebrate. Amen.