Latest / HBCWestminster / 9.4.22 1 Timothy 3:14-16 Pastor Danny Gardner

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9.4.22 1 Timothy 3:14-16 Pastor Danny Gardner · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  Well, you know, in the nation of Israel, after 400 years of slavery in Egypt, you remember Joseph and then you remember that 400 years of slavery, then all the plagues and all of that, then the exodus and the crossing over the Red Sea and out into the wilderness. And then the people's rebellion and disobedience at Kadesh Barnea when God finally takes them to the promised land and they go in and they say, no, we're not going in. We don't want to go in. And so he sends them back out into the desert to wander for 40 additional years.
• 0:28
  When after that 440 years, they finally found their way back to the promised land and were ordered to cross over the Jordan River, the Lord commanded them to erect a monument in his honor. The priests...
• 0:42
  if you recall the story from Joshua, led the way across the river. They were the first ones into the water. They stood in the middle of the riverbed as the people crossed over on dry ground, as that water was piling up upstream. The Lord had miraculously stopped the river and the people were crossing on dry ground. And as each tribe passed,
• 1:03
  One man was selected, no doubt the largest, strongest man in the tribe, was selected to grab the biggest rock he could carry from the bottom of the riverbed. Grab the biggest rock you can find, hoist that thing up and carry it across with you, then set it on the promised land side on the other ground. And as each tribe came across, those big old dudes picked up those rocks and began stacking them on the other side, the dry ground, promised land side of the river.
• 1:33
  Those 12 stones, known eventually as Ebenezer stones, would be stacked on the other side as a monument for future generations so that when their children saw them, their grandchildren saw them, future generations would ask their parents, their grandparents, their great-grandparents what they were for. Why is there a big, giant pile of rocks? And their parents would have an opportunity to retell the story of the Lord's faithfulness.
• 2:03
  to their people there was a day when the lord redeemed his people from egypt we rebelled went back out onto the desert but then god brought us back to the promised land and he stopped the river and we crossed on dry ground and those rocks that you see and can feel and touch those were at one point in the bottom of the riverbed but your great great great grandfather picked one of those things up and carried it across and the lord keeps his promises to his people they were meant as a tangible
• 2:33
  reminder and let me ask you church do you have any ebenezer stones in your life do you have monuments erected to the lord's faithfulness tangible reminders of the lord's sustaining grace toward your family or toward your church today is sort of an ebenezer weekend at highland realignment sunday
• 2:56
  Every year on Labor Day Sunday, today, we take a pause from our normal sermon series. You'll recall we just concluded NAM. We will start the book of Romans next. But we take one day to ensure that our direction as a church is in line with our stated mission and vision. I would remind us of the importance of repetition in the casting of vision because casting vision is like pouring water into a bucket that has a bunch of holes in it. Vision leaks.
• 3:26
  And on Realignment Sunday, we refill our leaky buckets. Highland, I would remind us, is actually a pretty old church. And if maybe this is your first Sunday with us, maybe you're new to the church, you've just started coming in the last few weeks, this is a perfect Sunday for you to be here because I'm going to tell you exactly who we are, what we believe, what we do. Highland is a pretty old church. It was established, planted in 1965 by our mother church then, Northwest Baptist Church.
• 3:57
  Highland actually predates any of our current attendees and members. Our church building predates every other structure around it. Here is the day of our groundbreaking in 1965 when they began erecting what is that side of the church building, the older side, what we now call the fellowship hall. That was the groundbreaking. You can see there, there is nothing around them.
• 4:23
  That sign was right there against 92nd Avenue, which on that day was still a dirt road. There was no 36 Boulder Turnpike. Westminster, Arvada, North Glen, Thornton, all of these towns, Broomfield, didn't have connecting borders. There was fields between them still. Right now you drive from one city to the next, you don't even realize you've crossed over into the other city. But at the time of Highland Baptist Church...
• 4:46
  founding, there was nothing else around. There were no houses. The police department, City Hall, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, none of that stuff was here. It was all by itself. It really makes me wish that they had claimed more dirt at the time. Right here we are with our little one and a half acres. Man, we would love to have more space, but nevertheless, we are landlocked where we are. But there they are on that day, Highland.
• 5:13
  was planted with this vision to evangelize and eventually make disciples of what was then and still kind of is the up-and-coming northwest quadrant of Denver. The founding members' hope was that God would bless this brand-new church to the point that they themselves, Highland Baptist Church, future generations, us, would perchance plant another church someday. They wanted to plant a church.
• 5:38
  that would plant churches. And if you're new to the church, you'll probably notice the three words that we kind of hang our ministry on. They're the three words that are on banners in the lobby. They're the three words that are hanging here on the wall behind me. Here are the three words that we really feel like are most important. We worship together. That's what we do. We call worship the preaching of the word of God and the praising of his name through music. And every time we're together, that's what we are doing. The word of God will be opened.
• 6:07
  and we will sing worship of his name. But not only that, we also seek to connect with one another. We have what are called connect homes, a once-a-month ministry which meets for dinner all around the city, about a dozen different homes around the city. They meet one time a month on the third Sunday of every month for dinner, for communion, and for prayer. And then on Wednesday nights, our midweek Bible study we call Thrive.
• 6:29
  And we say something for the whole family, from babies up to adults. No matter what your station in life is here, you can come 630 on Wednesday nights. And all three of these, worship, connect, and thrive, are important aspects of your participation with the family here at Highland. If there's one of those three things which is being neglected by you or by your family, then your spiritual growth as it relates to our church will be hindered. We want you to participate in all of those things.
• 6:56
  Our mission, as it is stated, and no doubt you've read this somewhere before, but our mission says this, Highland Baptist Church exists to communicate the life-changing message of the Lord Jesus Christ. We exist to preach the gospel. Amen? That's why we're here. The day we stop preaching the gospel, take the pulpit down and bar the doors. We're done, right? The day this church stops preaching the gospel,
• 7:25
  We're finished. That is the ministry that we exist to do. We proclaim the good news. We do that by equipping the saints for the work of ministry through the preaching of God's word and the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Our vision then is to train Christ followers whose goal it would be to plant and support churches when and where the Lord allows in order to replicate this mission. Our desire would be to proclaim the good news where it is not preached.
• 7:50
  to raise up new disciples of Christ, to strengthen and train them, and then to plant and establish new churches where the church's presence is weak. Now there have been some minor changes recently to our church staff that I wanted to share with you all. Whether you've been here for several years or whether you're brand new, some of these things will be brand new news to you. There have been a few little changes in our church staff and I've...
• 8:14
  has compiled a flow chart. We've never done this before because our flow chart until relatively recently has been easy. There's been two of us, okay? And so it's like, I mean, there they both are. It's been relatively easy. But as our church has grown and as God has blessed us and as we've been able to hire more staff, I wanted to make sure that you guys know who everybody is, that you can see who they are, that you'll know who oversees each of the ministries. Notice at the very top of the flow chart is who? Whose name is at the top?
• 8:42
  Jesus. Jesus is the head of the flow chart. You'll notice it is not me. I don't have a church. People will ask me sometimes, how big is your church? And I'm like, I don't have a church. Well, where does your church meet? I don't have a church. I don't have a church. I didn't die for anybody. I wasn't resurrected for anybody. I mean, nobody's baptized in my name. If you hear about people being baptized in my name, man, you get out of there, all right? That is straight heresy. No, like, what are you talking? I don't have a church. This is Jesus's church. He is the head of the church.
• 9:10
  that in all things he might be preeminent. In fact, there's a Bible verse that says as much. Colossians 1 and verse 18, he, referring to Jesus, is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning. He's the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. It is our goal at Highland that in everything that we do, Jesus would be proclaimed. He is preeminent. He is the head of the church.
• 9:33
  Working for Jesus are the two boards, the board of elders and the board of trustees. The elders oversee the vision for the church, the ministry of philosophy. They hand out compassion ministry. They do the counseling. They oversee all of the connect homes. That is the elders. The trustees oversee the finances and the facilities of the church. Taken together, the elders and trustees make up what are called the board.
• 9:59
  Okay, so if you ever hear the board or there is a board meeting tonight, that means that the elders and trustees are getting together to talk through the kind of daily, weekly, monthly affairs of the church. Notice I work for the board of elders. The board of elders are my boss. I submit to them. They don't work for me. I work for them. I do what they tell me to do. They have the authority to fire me. I do not have the authority to fire them.
• 10:24
  I work for them. And in fact, every May, I have an employee review with the chairman of the elder board. He does my employee review. He tells me if he thinks I'm doing a good job. He tells me the things that I can grow in, the areas that I'm weak, just like a normal employee would. The elders have then given to me the authority to oversee the rest of the staff. And notice on the left there is Carla. She is our worship director. She was up here on the piano this morning. She oversees the music ministry of the church, including the choir.
• 10:54
  Under her, Mona is our treasurer. That's accounts payable. She's the one who writes all the checks. Our family pastor, Nathan, you'll notice he and I look very similar, okay? We are different humans, all right?
• 11:07
  But we get mistaken for each other all the time. It happens every single week. Somebody is talking to Nathan. They think they're talking to me. Somebody's talking to me. They ask me about something Nathan oversees. At this point, we just go with it, okay? We haven't corrected. We've stopped correcting people because it happens so often. And Nathan and I do report back to each other the conversations we had on the other's behalf, all right? So we do that like, hey, just so you know, this lady thought she was talking to me, you know, to you. She was talking to me. Here's what she said and whatever. But we are different. And it's funny because
• 11:37
  even our own kids have mistaken us. There have been times when our wives have mistaken us, where Hallie has come up behind Nathan, asked him a question thinking it was me, but it was really him, whatever. So at this point, we just go with it. So he is our family pastor. Working for him is our sound engineer, Adam. That's everything upstairs, audio, visual, all of that. Our two children's directors now work for Nathan, and this is new. If you've been around the church,
• 12:04
  They have been reporting directly to me. I have been the pastor who has overseen the children's ministry. That has proven to be one too many layers. We needed a pastor whose job was directly over the children's ministry. So like on Wednesday nights, as I'm in here teaching the adults, there was not a pastor over there overseeing the kids. And so what I've asked Nathan to do is to make his focus and direction as the family pastor, the oversight of that side of the building. There will be a pastor now on that side of the building.
• 12:33
  All the time that our kids are over there, he will do some of the teaching. He's going to make sure that the curriculum is sound and all of those things. We never had any issues. Everything was going very well. But as the children's ministry has grown, there have been more and more kids. We wanted our kids to know who their pastor was. So every time they're over there, Nathan is going to be helping to oversee the children's ministry. Claudia and Lauren help him to do that. They are our children's directors. Pastor Jerry is our global ministries pastor.
• 13:00
  Global Ministries involves expatriates who maybe live here in Denver. There is a large Filipino population here in Denver. There's a large, you know, a lot of people from around the world, but our focus has kind of been the Philippines, and Jerry is from the Philippines, and so at the first and second services especially, you'll notice we have a large Filipino population who attends the church here. They're members of the church here. He oversees that, but he also spends half of the year in the Philippines itself. He's there right now with his wife Elisa. They are expanding the kingdom there by overseeing
• 13:29
  camping ministry for youth, sharing the gospel with them. And so he spends six months there and six months here. Our adult ministries pastor is Sam Porges. Sam was our youth pastor, but as of this weekend is officially transitioning into an adult ministries role. He'll oversee the men's and women's Bible study, the connect homes and some other things. He also, you'll notice, oversees Hallie, who is our women's director.
• 13:51
  Hallie is my wife. She intentionally, and this is intentional, she intentionally works for Sam and not for me. I don't have direct oversight of my wife, although her boss, I am her boss's boss, so I'm like her grand boss, right? But it is intentional. She doesn't work directly for me, just like Carla Anderson, who is Nathan's wife, doesn't work directly for him. She works for me.
• 14:14
  Our new youth director, Wes, he's been here the last few months, doing a great job with our youth ministry. I'm so excited about the direction of our youth group. Our custodian, Mike, and then our office manager, Lori. Lori is the one who answers your emails and who answers the phone when you call. And so that is our church staff. Now there are a few things which I believe make our church...
• 14:36
  These are things that are kind of unique to our church, and some of them I wish weren't unique, but nevertheless, things that, as we hear back from people who have attended other churches or are hunting for churches, things that we found kind of make our church unique among the churches in North Denver. The first is that we are committed to preach the word. Now, you'd think that that would not be unique to our church. You'd think that that would be true of everybody, and I think most churches probably say that they are committed to preach the word, but then when you listen to them preach the word, you're like, wait, where's...
• 15:07
  The word, right? They go on about a lot of other things or will avoid certain passages or topics. And we are committed to the preaching ministry of the word of God. And I wish it weren't true, but I hear back consistently from visitors how unique it is to find a church which is committed to preach the whole counsel of God. They will say, and this happened just this week, how unique it is to find a church which is willing to call evil, evil.
• 15:35
  and Good Good, a church which does not shy away from tough social or cultural issues. Now, we are, in the next couple of weeks, going to be launching into a study of Romans, which will take us anywhere from 12 to 18 months. If you've ever read Romans 1, it's got some stuff to say about homosexuality. It flat calls it sin. It calls it a perversion. I'm going to preach that from this pulpit. Romans 1, it'll be in October.
• 16:02
  Right? We'll go through it. And I'm committed to preach the Word of God the way that it is written. Okay? We stick to the script. And so although I know that it's not socially acceptable, it is not culturally acceptable, it would get us canceled and whatever else, we are committed to preach the text in front of us. Notice also, we are committed to train from within. We are committed to Ephesians 4, verse 12, which says, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
• 16:31
  I will say frequently that it is not my job to evangelize your neighborhood. That is your job. My job is to equip you to do it. Along those lines, we most often hire our church staff from within the congregation. When we needed a new youth director, we looked within our own body first. Who has the Lord given us? Who has the Lord provided and prepared? We found Wes.
• 16:57
  clearly gifted, trained, educated in it, we hired him. He was already a member here. Now that is not to say that we will never make an outside hire, but it is to say that we are deliberate about the training up and sending out of our people for new gospel works. If your desire is to be in ministry and to be trained in ministry, you don't need to leave to learn how to do it. We want to train you how to use your gifts for the building up of the body of Christ. Not only that, we are committed to remaining debt free.
• 17:27
  We paid off the church building last summer. We are now beholden to no bank. We owe nobody anything. It is our intention to remain debt-free for the purpose of aggressively advancing the kingdom whenever and wherever we can. And if you're new to the church, maybe this is your first Sunday, if those distinctives resonate with you, then you will love it here. That is what we do. There we are on a screen. Speaking of the preaching ministry, let's get to preaching.
• 17:57
  1 Timothy 3 and verse 14, and I'm going to read our text, verses 14 to 16. If you're able to stand in honor of God's word as I do, I would ask you to do that now. Beginning in verse 14, it says, I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
• 18:29
  Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. Let's pray. Lord, we lift our church to you in prayer. Make Highland Baptist Church the body of believers that you have envisioned. Make your will known among us. Make your mission known among us. Be glorified by the preaching of your word. In Jesus' name, amen.
• 19:01
  Amen. Thank you, church. Well, the letter of 1 Timothy, as some of you probably know, is one of what are called the pastoral epistles. These are letters written by the Apostle Paul to Timothy and Titus, his young pastoral disciples, in order to infuse in them the courage and the knowledge that he deemed necessary in order to effectively pastor their churches. 1 Timothy 3 is a reminder from the Apostle of the fundamentals.
• 19:31
  of church ministry and he does this so profoundly by using one word this one word that is found in verse 15 which will really become the focus of our study this morning notice in verse 15 he calls the church the household of god the greek word oikos could also be translated family the family of god he calls the church a family
• 19:59
  When I, as I often do from the pulpit, say that Highland Baptist Church is a family, I didn't make that idea up. We are a family. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. We share a heavenly Father. We all have, spiritually speaking, the same last name. We're a family. And just like members of a physical family must meet certain expectations,
• 20:25
  So also there are several essential realities to being a part of the family of God. As a family, certain fundamental things must be true of us. We, as the family of God, must do the things that families do. When I, when I was 25 or so years old, and my beautiful bride Hallie told me that she was pregnant with our firstborn, I was going to be a father.
• 20:53
  especially when I found out that my firstborn was going to be a son. I very deliberately set out some expectations on who I wanted my son to become. I think it probably would have been a little bit different if I had found out I was having a daughter. I probably would have encouraged Hallie, like, what are you going to teach our girl? Like, you're the mother of a daughter. But I found out that day I was going to be the father of a son. What am I going to teach my son to do? What qualities in terms of his character do I want to instill in him? And more than that, just practically speaking,
• 21:24
  What skills did I want him to have? I was at the time a high school teacher. I was being inundated at that time with what are called ESLRs, expected student learning results. It's just a fancy name for goals. I always wondered why they didn't just call them goals.
• 21:43
  goals right but they never called them goals and people in education love acronyms and they just they got to make these things up all the time and so it was all these esslers expected student learning results and we as teachers had to put down these esslers by the time we get to the end of the year here are the things that our students should have learned they were very objective right so you could quantify did they meet the goal or did they not and so i in that time
• 22:09
  When Pearson was born, I viewed him as belonging to the Lord, but having been entrusted to me. And I thought I'm probably going to have him for around 20 years. For 20 years, the Lord has entrusted to me this boy. And so I honestly thought, and I told Hallie, we were just, you know, we'd only been married for a couple of years. I told her, I've got 20 years to make this kid a soldier in the Lord's army. I really did think that way.
• 22:35
  I want him to be as effective in the kingdom as possible. How do I make him effective as a soldier? And so I made a list of all the things that I thought would be most helpful to the kingdom. Some were very profound. Some were very spiritually important. Some were very generic. Some were very specific. Some were just because I wanted to. Knowing that God made Pearson not only just anyone's son, he made him my son. And so I thought, okay, what am I going to teach this kid to do? I am going to teach him at some point how to fly fish.
• 23:05
  That is going to happen. He is a gardener, and gardeners fly fish. And so I'm going to teach all my sons, and I have. Pearson is 20, Zach is 17, Chase is 12. They can all fly fish. They can all catch fish. They all know what to do with them. They know what to do, right? It's fly fish. They may not love it or whatever, be passionate about it. They don't all share the same passionate level about it, but they all know how to fly fish. I'm going to teach my sons how to love reading. They are going to love to read. And I would tell them frequently, the world is run.
• 23:35
  by those who read. It is not run by those who watch YouTube. It's run by those who read. And I wanted to instill in them a love for reading. And not just reading in general, but the reading of...
• 23:50
  books i wanted them to read books and so i taught them to love books if you come to my house there are books everywhere they read these books and i would tell them and some of you already know this but i would tell them they'd open their books when they were really little they'd open their books and i would have them hold their books up to their faces and i would just say guys boys smell it just smell the book you know you smell the book and especially when they're brand new textbooks right the glue that holds the binding together has a certain smell it smells good
• 24:16
  And you open that up and you smell it, and I would tell them, no kidding, I told them all the time, you guys, did you know, boys, smart has a smell. That is what smart smells like. Intelligence has a smell. Open up a book and smell it. That is what intelligence smells like. Love to read, learn to read, love to read. I thought I'm going to teach my sons how to throw a curveball. All Gardner boys will know how to throw a curveball, and all Gardner boys will know how to hit.
• 24:48
  A curveball. I thought I'm going to teach them to be proficient. My goal was at the time, proficient in three musical instruments. I thought I'm going to teach them piano, guitar, and drums. They got two out of the three. They never learned how to play the drums, but all three of my boys know how to play piano and guitar because I thought, you know, as a pastor of a church, I'm always looking for pianists and guitarists. Always.
• 25:11
  I always need that. And so I'm going to teach them how to do it. I need help. And so along that line, I thought I'm going to teach them how to run a soundboard because I'm always looking for a sound guy. They're going to know how to run a soundboard. They're going to know how to be good dressers. I'm going to teach them how to iron their shirts because good grief, right? I'm going to teach them what pants go with what shoes. And despite all of the work in that regard, they're still obsessed with basketball shorts. I don't understand.
• 25:37
  I'm going to teach them how to safely fire a gun. I'm going to teach them how to grill a steak. It's important. A man should know how to grill a steak. I'm going to teach them the basics of car mechanics. I'm going to teach them how to back up a trailer. What's it feel like to pull a trailer? How does a brake controller work? I'm going to teach them these things. As gardeners, they will know how to do some of these things. Some of them really matter for eternity. Some of them don't matter at all. They're just because they're us and the Lord's family has the same expectations.
• 26:06
  When the Bible says, when God gave me three gardener boys, he knew that I would instill in them certain things. There would be certain things that are true of my sons because they're gardeners. And church, listen, we are part of the family of God at Highland. As Highlanders, certain things should also be true of us. Well, like what? First, what should be true of us? Number one, we hang out. It's what we do. We hang out together. We spend time together. We worship.
• 26:38
  If someone doesn't attend here, then they're not a part of the family. Can you imagine how weird it would be? You run into somebody at Costco, you're like, I go to Highland, they're like, no way, I'm part of the Highland family too. And then you say, well, what service do you go to? Well, I don't actually attend. You're like, well, then you're not part of us. Right? I mean, if you don't come, then you're not part of the family. Part of what makes us a family is that we hang out together.
• 27:05
  And several years ago, our board revised the church constitution to include a provision in church membership, which in essence states that if one of our church members has no engagement with the church at all over the course of one calendar year for 12 months, they don't attend, they don't show up, they don't contact us, they don't call, we're sending letters and emails, they're not writing back. If a full year goes by, no contact at all, then their membership automatically expires. You may say, well, why did you do that?
• 27:34
  It was because of an encounter I had with a woman right here at Highland in our church lobby who showed up on a Sunday where all of the members were voting for the new budget and the new board members. Our members all vote one time a year in November. And she shows up on this Sunday expecting to cast her vote, which was, what was weird about it is I had never seen this woman before. And so I thought, are you new? She says, no, I'm actually a member here. And I thought, well, that's...
• 28:03
  Weird. My name is Danny. She had no idea who I was. I said, well, my name is Danny. And she said, yeah, it's been a little while since I've attended. Well, when was the last time you were here? She said, 1990. I was like, wait, what? She hadn't attended. She had no contact in over 20 years. She hadn't been here, and yet she showed up expecting to cast her vote as a member of the church. And I very delicately and gingerly, politely told her that she was welcome to attend and worship with us.
• 28:32
  I said, I have some bad news. You can't cast a vote. Well, why not? Because you're not actually a member here. You haven't been in 20 years. Members of Highland Baptist Church are here. They're present. They're engaged in the church. The New Testament is littered with one another statements, which are a good reminder for we who are part of the Highland family. And just a quick little blip of research. I wrote, I compiled a small list of them. This is not even exhaustive. But notice what the word of God says. Love one another.
• 29:05
  Be devoted to one another.
• 29:06
  Honor one another above yourselves. Live in harmony with one another. Build up one another. Be like-minded toward one another. Accept one another. Admonish one another. Greet one another. Care for one another. Serve one another. Bear one another's burdens. Forgive one another. Be patient with one another. Speak to one another with truth and love. Be kind and compassionate toward one another. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Submit to one another. Consider one another's needs. Look to the interests of one another. Bear with one another. Teach with one another. Convert one another. Encourage one another. Exhort one another. Stir up one another.
• 29:35
  Hold on. Show hospitality to one another. Employ the gifts that God has given for the benefit of one another. Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. Pray for one another. Confess your faults to one another. Can I get an amen? There it is. That is what the Word of God says. It baffles me when people will come to me and say, the New Testament never actually says I have to go to church. I'm always like, wait, what New Testament are you reading? You notice every one of those, one and others, was an imperative. It was a command. Did you guys see that? Command.
• 30:08
  It ain't just you, Jesus, in the mountains. That's not church. These are all commands. And my question would be, how do we fulfill, how do we obey the commands, all of these one another commands, without one another? How do you do that? It's impossible. There is a reason we structure the church the way that we do. We want people here at the same time doing basically the same thing, worshiping, listening, praying, laughing, hugging one another. That is...
• 30:37
  What we do, we hang out. But not only that, we also eat together. Now for the church, that's both literal and metaphorical. It takes the form of communion and preaching. A vital aspect of the family of God here at Highland is the time we spend gathered around the Lord's word and the Lord's table. We hear expository preaching from the scriptures and we remember the Lord Jesus' sacrifice through communion. We've just done it. Every Sunday morning, it's like we meet for family dinner. Imagine Sunday mornings as family dinner.
• 31:08
  I cook and prepare all week. That's what I do. That's what I'm doing when I'm studying. And then I set out on Sunday morning, what is hopefully a feast for God's people to dine on. I am painstaking about it. I am fastidious about my studies. Ask the people who know me and watch me. I mean, I am careful. You guys, I never wing it. There has never been a time where I've stood at a pulpit and said, let's just see what comes out.
• 31:37
  Like it's never happened. I am careful. In fact, I pray over every word I speak from the pulpit. I prepare. It is family dinner. We come to dine on it every Sunday morning, every Wednesday night. And then twice a month, we literally eat together. We celebrate communion by taking the bread and drinking the cup. Families hang out. Families eat together. But notice, and I'll end with this, families rejoice.
• 32:04
  and mourn together. There's a lot of different directions. I could have gone with this last one, but I chose this. Romans chapter 12 and verse 15 says, Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Imagine for a moment that your earthly family were hit with devastating news. Maybe a phone call on some kind of a sickness, a terminal illness, or a sudden tragic death, or an extramarital affair, or a sudden job loss. You would turn to your family for comfort, for support, for counsel.
• 32:37
  Your family would rally around you and bring you food and give you hugs and pray over you. Your family would even weep with you. In fact I believe that every tear shed by a loved one is a tear that the hurt person doesn't have to shed. I can imagine it like there are a certain number of tears the Lord has sovereignly orchestrated to be shed over certain events.
• 32:59
  And when a loved one comes along and mourns alongside the one who has lost, it's like they can help to absorb some of those tears. Like we are sponges absorbing the mourning of one another. And listen, that is what the church family does. We care for and support. We comfort. We provide. We cook and clean for the hurting Highlander. And with a church of 500, listen, there are always people who are hurting.
• 33:28
  Always, every single week we are putting together meal trains. Every single week we are giving counsel. Every single week we are visiting people in hospitals. I was this week meeting together with families from the church, with surgeons, talking about options, doing that, sitting in the same room, listening to the surgeon talk. That is what we do. We mourn with one another. Now imagine that someone in your earthly family just gave birth to a bouncing baby boy. You need baby clothes and diapers. You need trustworthy babysitters.
• 33:59
  I've often wondered, what does the world do? Do they seriously go online to find babysitters? Like, what? I don't care if you're certified in CPR. I don't know you. Like, you ain't touching my kid. What in the world? Now you need advice on how to raise that kid. What happens when your son swallows a nickel? That really happens.
• 34:25
  What happens when they find a coin on the floor and they swallow a nickel? Now, I'll tell you exactly what happens. They come out kind of rainbow-ish. It's really weird. But that happens. What do I do? And when you're young parents, you've got this baby that the Lord has entrusted to your care. Make sure you don't kill it. You're like, what? I don't know what to do. The doctors are helpful for the first couple weeks. They're like, I'll tell you which end of the bottle to suck on. But other than that, good luck. Enter the church.
• 34:56
  That is what the church does. We dedicate babies. We commit as a Highland family to help to raise them. We offer support in the nursery. We offer support in the children's. We offer support in babysitting. We stand around each other and rally together. In fact, when I do baby dedications, I hold that little baby. I've got this young couple standing next to me, and I make everybody in the church stand up.
• 35:18
  And I say, if you will commit along with me to help them, to support them in the raising of this baby, in the fear and admonition of God, would you just say out loud, amen? And they hear 150 people all at once say amen. And it's an audible reminder to them that they are not alone. That's what the church does. Imagine that your job has changed. You suddenly need to move. You need help with moving. In that case, don't call us. We won't help.
• 35:45
  I'm just kidding. You're in the throes of packing boxes. You need a truck and a trailer. You're like, I have a piano. How am I going to do this? Call Nathan, right? Who's going to help me pick up my refrigerator? Listen, that is what the church does. If you were to boil down the church ministry into one word, the word would be help. We help. We make it so that you don't have to get from here to heaven alone. We're with you.
• 36:13
  We lock arms with you. And in all of the seasons of life, whether that's rejoicing or mourning, we help. And I honestly don't know how the world gets by without a church family. When you come into the church,
• 36:30
  Have that perspective. Take a look around. These are not just the people you attend church with. This is your family. These are the people who believe like you do and think like you do and raise their kids like you do, are committed to the same things you are and will spend eternity with you. That's who is sitting around you. This is the household of God. Let me pray. God, thank you for this truth. And Lord, what a truth we can rejoice in, that we are not in it alone.
• 37:00
  There is a whole band of people around us, a family of people around us who will help. Lord, we love you and are so thankful for your bride, the church. And may you have preeminence in all things in Jesus' name. Amen.