Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website, globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Hello, this is Mark Rutland. Before we begin today's message, I have a very special and very happy announcement. Our son Travis, who is the pastor at Liberty Square Church in Cartersville, Georgia, has just launched his own podcast featuring the sermons that he preaches there and elsewhere. I'm so excited to offer this to you because I believe Travis is one of the finest preachers I hear today. My wife and I attend that church and I look forward to every single message filled with application and and anointing. He is a terrific preacher and you're gonna be blessed. The name of the podcast is very obviously the Travis Rutland Podcast and you can find it on all major platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and others.
Or you can listen directly through the Global Servants website, at globalservants.org/podcast.
His new episodes are going to be released every Thursday and they will be ready for you when you wake up and start your.
I hope you'll subscribe. Listen each week, leave a five star review and let Travis know how much his messages encourage you as they encourage me. Here I am in my late 70s and one of the finest preachers that I hear today, ever hear today, is my son. It thrills me to offer him to you through his new podcast, the Travis Rutland Podcast. God bless you.
You have your Bibles, if you'll take those, turn, if you will, to one Timothy. We are continuing this series on the epistles of Paul. The Epistles. Epistle simply means a letter, a message, a letter, if you will.
So if, say, the epistles of Paul, that's fine, that they're the letter to the church at Ephesus or the letter to the church at Colossae or whatever, the letter to Timothy, the letter to Titus. But I want you to take those names out and say to yourself, you've got mail.
That each of these letters also, beyond the immediate contextual reality of the letters, speaks to us. Otherwise they wouldn't be in the Bible.
So it's not simply in the Bible so we can know what Paul wrote to Timothy.
This whole series is you've got mail.
Unfortunately, it's my observation that many, many contemporary believers kind of skim through the epistles. They read the Gospels, they Read the book of Acts, and then they jump the Revelation.
And I just thought it was time for us to kind of take time and walk through the epistles a little more carefully tonight. One Timothy and Titus. These two letters are very, very similar because they were written at the same time, almost back to back, probably back to back. And they were written for the same purpose. Paul was writing to encourage two young preachers, bishops really, that he had ordained and left behind, to bring order and teaching and structure.
One was Timothy, a beloved son of his who was at Ephesus, and then Titus, who was on the island of Crete. And he actually says to Titus, go from town to town, all over the island, ordaining elders from city to city.
And then he's writing to them, pastoral council, an elderly pastor at the end of. Toward the end of his ministry, or writing to young guys, trying to encourage them and teach them about the things that they would face and about the importance of what they do. So let's just begin reading with 1 Timothy, if you will. Chapter 1, verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope unto Timothy, my own son in the faith, grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord, as I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying, which is in faith, so do.
Now the end of the commandment is charity. In other words, love out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and a faith unfeigned, from which some, having swerved, have turned aside into vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm.
Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, in the next few moments, I pray that your Spirit will speak to us, that this letter may be to our souls for its profit, to our lives, our leadership, our marriages, our families. Speak to us even as you must have spoken to Timothy as he held the letter in his hand and read this and then shared it with the church, and then it was preserved extant for us to have in the Scriptures. Now speak to us.
We believe you for it. In Jesus name, Amen.
Timothy at Ephesus has the easier job of the two. Frankly, Titus is at Crete and Titus is facing. We're going to read it in just a moment. Titus is facing cultural challenges as well. As the religious and doctrinal challenges they both were facing. But Paul. One of the things Paul warns them about is the base nature of humanity.
He says, look, just because somebody comes to church doesn't make them perfect. You're going to deal with imperfect people.
Especially if you'll turn to Titus. Now turn to the letter of Titus. And I want to read verse one through 12. And we'll emphasize verse 12. Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. According to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness and in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, promised before the world began, but hath in these due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God, our Savior. To Titus, mine own son, after the common faith, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. For this cause I left thee in Crete. You see how similar the two letters are.
Paul begins with the same thing, his statement of authority. Then he says to Timothy, this is the reason I left you in Ephesus. Then he says to Titus, this is the reason I left you in Crete. That thou should set in order the things that are wanting, that are lacking, if you will. And ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee. If any be blameless. The husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God. Not self willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker. In other words, not hitting people.
Not given to filthy lucre money, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word, as he hath been taught. That he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. For there are many unruly, vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision meaning. He says, look, I've got people that are Jews like I am. Paul is Jewish. He says, I've got Jews who are Jews like I am. And they're just giving us trouble, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not. For filthy lucre sake, one of themselves. Now, what does he mean, a person of Crete? A poet from the island of Crete, even a prophet of their own. Said, the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts and slow bellies. This witness is true.
So, Paul, tell us what you really think.
Quit beating around the bush.
So he quotes an ancient poet from the island of Crete. There is an odd phrase, slow bellies.
And I spent some time researching the phrase because it sounded so odd to me. And it simply means people that are lazy and would rather do nothing but eat.
So he. He is just blasting the Cretans, and he says to Titus, you've got a terrible problem here. All these people there, they're self indulgent, they're lazy, they're chronic liars.
But he doesn't tell him to leave.
He says, stay and teach them to do the things at the first of the letter, to be people of faithfulness and earnestness. That their character can be improved through the ministry of preaching.
He calls him to sound doctrine.
This is something that is extremely important.
There is a direct connection to the corruption of our doctrine and the corruption of our character.
When our doctrines become perverted, twisted, we will either change our doctrines or we will change our character. If our doctrines drift us aside, we will follow them.
When I was at Emory University, right at the end of the Civil War, I remember that there was there at the same time, and I was studying a professor, Dr. Thomas Althiser, and he wrote a book which enjoyed some momentary success. Now, nobody remembers his book, and nobody remembers Tom Althiser, but he wrote a book and the title was God is Dead.
And it enjoyed some success in. In those circles, those kind of theological circles. The idea seemed avant garde and exciting and adventuresome to announce that God is dead. And I remember one of the quotes in the book, he says, God no longer wants us to be like helpless children. He wants us to come of age as though he was dead. And to be grown up and no longer dependent on God.
So when I was there, this book was popular. I remember there was some graffiti on the wall of the seminary. And somebody had written, God is dead. Signed Tom Altizer.
Somebody else came along with a different pen and wrote, who is Tom Altizer? Signed, God.
So what we believe important, what we preach is important.
Doctrine is significant.
False teachers with false doctrine leads to broken character.
It's important. People can say, oh, I don't want to. I don't want to argue over doctrine. I don't want to get involved in those kinds of things. But there must be some who will rise up, like Paul, and protect the doctrines of the church that will say this. We cannot preach this.
We must not say that. We must stay on the pure doctrine of the church.
One of the main reasons is because what will happen is when our doctrines become corrupted, then our character eventually becomes corrupted.
Then Paul Talks about the silly stuff that people argue over. He says, look, there are important things.
The resurrection of Christ, the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the resurrection from the dead. These things are important.
But he says there are other people that they just want to argue over. Stupid stuff, genealogies. When you read the genealogies of the Old Testament, he begat him, who begat him, who begat him, who begat him? And people get in there and prowl around and they argue, was this the son? Was this the grandson? Was this three generations? Was this four generations?
There are people who launch huge church arguments over how old the earth is, that if there is some specific era of the age of the earth, and they have whole arguments over over nothing. What if you got it right?
What does that change?
Okay, if it's 5,000 years, 4,000 years, no matter how, if you get it right, what does it change?
Here's the other question.
What if you get it wrong?
That doesn't change anything either. If you could pin down the exact day of the seventh day of creation and date the earth specifically and have it right, it will not get you into heaven.
And if you got it completely wrong, it will not keep you out.
When you get to the gates, God is not going to ask you whether you got it right about how old the earth was.
A man came to me at a revival where I was preaching, and he was not angry, but he was forthright. He said, I just want to come to you with something. He said, you're just using the wrong word. And he said, you keep talking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And he said, it's not the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it's the baptism with the Holy Spirit. And he said, I've written this book. And he had a book, it looked like it was maybe 400 pages. And he said, I want to give you my book so that you won't continue with this error. Will you read this book? I said, sir, I want to be frank with you. I not only will not read that book, I will not accept it.
I said, if your entire theology hangs on a preposition, it's useless.
Of, with, in, through, none of that will matter. I would far rather you would call it wrong and get it right, then call it right and argue with everybody over prepositions.
That's what Paul calls vain janglings.
There are just people that want to fight in church over, frankly, stupid stuff.
And those are arguments I'm not going to get into. I am determined to preserve the faith. I'm determined to preach Sound doctrine.
I will not approve of those who preach false doctrine. I won't pretend to approve of it.
Tom Maltizer was wrong. And let me just say this to you now. He knows. But.
But I also am not going to get into arguments over things that are nothing more important than what he called Paul calls fables and genealogies. And then he sums them up with the phrase vain janglings. If you will look at verses 10 through 16 of the passage from Titus which we just read. For there are many unruly and vain talkers, deceivers, especially they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things they ought not to for filthy lucre sake. So he deals with the issue of preaching stuff for money's sake. Twice one of themselves, even a prophet of their own said the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, low bellies, this witness is true. Wherefore what rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth unto the pure. All things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
Do you see how Paul connects the issue of sound doctrine and significant doctrine and corrupt culture and. And. And developed, fully developed culture.
That's the first part of the two letters. Both letters he deals with the same thing. He tells these young bishops or young preachers preach sound doctrine. Hold the line, but don't be drawn aside into stupid and useless arguments. I would say this to all of you in passing. You also as church member, you've got mail. And Paul is saying the same thing to you. Don't be seduced by false teaching. Weigh every spirit. Is it in line with Scripture? Test the spirits. Don't be seduced away from the things of God with false teaching. But don't argue over stuff that doesn't matter. You have to know the difference between doctrine that matters and bickering over prepositions.
The second thing Paul deals with is church life.
It's just how to worship, how to pray, the administration of the word, church, order and discipline.
If you'll turn to chapter 3 of 1 Timothy, and I want to read verses 1 through 13.
This know that in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural Affection, truce, breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded lovers of pleasure, more than the lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. From such turn away.
For of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Now, as Jenny's and Jembres withstood Moses, he's now giving an Old Testament reference, the book of Exodus. So do these also resist the truth, Men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. Do you see what he's saying? As Janice and Jambres fought against Moses, the these who fight against sound doctrine are standing against the will and purpose and truth of God. And he compares them to the rebels in the book of Exodus that the earth opened up and swallowed, verse 9. But they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be manifest unto all men as theirs, meaning Genesis. And Jambres was but thou has fully known my doctrine, my manner of life, my purpose, my faith, my long suffering, my love, my patience, my persecutions, my afflictions which came unto me at Antioch and Iconium at Lystra, what persecutions I endured. But out of them all, the Lord delivered me.
So he says to Timothy, he says, you know how I've lived. You know what I've taught, you know what I've endured. You watched all this. You saw all this. And you also saw the delivering power of God. Why is he telling him all this? He's saying to him, look, you're going to face the same things. You're going to be dealing with the same problems I did. And he's telling him, stand firm, stand strong, don't melt. Preach the word, Preach what I preached. Live as I lived.
Stand strong in the things of God and in the doctrine of God.
Now read a little bit further, if you will, onto verse chapter four.
I charge thee therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick, meaning the living, the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. Preach the word, be instant in season. That's 2 Timothy 4. I'm going to come to that next week. So he is charging him. Preach firm doctrine, sound doctrine. Don't melt. Don't worry about persecution when it comes. Don't worry about challenges in the faith that they will come. But he says, keep church order.
Teach people how to worship, teach people how to pray.
Teach people the word.
Now let's deal with a thorny issue which Paul deals with, and that is the issue of women in the church.
There is a fascinating conflict in Paul's own doctrine. In his own. Not his doctrine, in his.
In his diction, in his language. Because in the middle of the teaching about women in the church, he shifts from plural women to singular woman.
So I think, as I'm able to read it, what has happened, Timothy has written to Paul and said, there's a woman in the church that's driving me crazy.
And Paul says, okay, teach the women to be subject to men. Teach the women to be decent. Teach the women not to be gossips. And this woman.
And it's obvious that he shifts. He's making a generalized statement, and then he's talking about this specific woman. How do you handle this? Don't let her talk in church.
I think it's a mistake for us to take Paul's letter to Timothy and impose that as some kind of a contemporary rule about the ministry of women.
God has always used women and always will use women. I would say this through major portions of church history. If it hadn't been for women, the church would have gone under.
So I thank God for men to rise up and be strong. I believe for God to call men to preach. But I also want to say this to you. It's a mistake to use one Timothy as some kind of a new law about the place of women.
I was thinking about Kathryn Kuhlmann. Was a fascinating interview with Kathryn Kuhlman. Some of you may not remember. She was a great Pentecostal healing evangelist. And somebody asked her one time, why do you think God would call you? Why would God call a woman to this great huge crowd, thousands and thousands and thousands, great miracles.
She was a bit of a character, let's be honest. But somebody said, why would God call you? Kathryn Kuhlman said, I don't think God called me.
I think he called dozens and dozens of men, and they wouldn't say yes. So he finally had to resort to me.
And she said, look, if you're standing on a chair trying to hang a picture and you put the nail right where you want it, and your hammer is out of reach.
She said, what do you do? You don't get down and remove the nail. You take your shoe off and hit it with the heel.
She said, there were hammers that wouldn't say yes. I'm just the heel of an old shoe.
I believe that any woman called of God and anointed of God can be used in a mighty way. And I appreciate Catherine's humility and grace that was. That made her what she was in many ways.
Don't impose a rule or law based on what is said in 1 Timothy. I think Paul was dealing with an issue in the church at Ephesus.
Now turn, if you will, to 1 Timothy, chapter 4 and verses 12 and 16.
Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, not just conversation, in King James. English doesn't just mean how you talk. It means the way you comport yourself, the way you live, in charity, love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation and to doctrine.
Wow, what a great recipe for a ministry.
Read. Read books, read the Bible, read everything. Study. Be a person of study.
Also be a person of teaching. Also be a person of sound doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
Meditate upon these things. Give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear unto all. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them. For in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. This continued thread of connecting doctrine and character.
But listen to how he begins.
Don't let anybody despise your youth.
Instead, let them see how you live and how you lead.
I would say the same thing to anyone who take the issue of females preaching. Don't let anybody despise you because you're a woman preacher. Let them see your grace and your love and your doctrine and the sweetness of your character and the countenance of Christ upon you. Be sound in your doctrine and be strong in your character. And don't let anybody despise you because you're a young preacher. When my first church, I was 21.
When I was appointed to a first full time church. Do you know a verse of scripture that I hung my hat on?
Was one Timothy. Do not let anybody despise you. My wife was 19.
We had kids in the youth group older than the pastor's wife.
There were people on the board that were young, that were older than my dad and I had to have something to hang my hat on. And it was that passage, don't let anyone despise your youth, but let them see how you live and let them see the sound doctrine.
Now we come to the third issue, and that is finances. And another verse of Paul which I believe is taken out of context. Turn to 1 Timothy, chapter 6 and verse 10.
For the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
But thou, O man of God, O woman of God, O person of God, flee. These things follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness, fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called and has professed a good profession before many witnesses.
That verse of Scripture, the love of money is the root of all evil, has been misquoted and misapplied that to make people feel guilty of about having money.
Paul is not talking about. He is not denouncing those that are wealthy. He is denouncing those who allow money to become an obsession. The love, the inordinate love of money.
You can one, not you one can love God and use money, or you can love money and use God.
That's what Paul is saying in one Timothy there and in Titus there are those who hope only to prosper, to profit somehow from the Gospel.
But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't prosper. That doesn't mean that God doesn't want to bless your business. That doesn't mean that God doesn't want to profit you. Let me give you some examples of people in Scripture that God used mightily to because of their wealth.
First of all, Joseph.
If it had not been the way that God profited, Joseph made him successful, hugely, phenomenally wealthy. One of the wealthiest men in the world at that time, and probably one of the wealthiest people that has ever lived was Joseph. And God used him to preserve the Jewish people. If it hadn't been for his wealth, he couldn't have done that.
Let me give you some others.
Lydia, Paul's first convert in Europe, was a woman, and she was a highly successful merchant. And God used her to nurture and encourage the ministry in Europe through her contributions to Paul and his ministry.
Jesus himself was blessed by a female supporter, a woman named Joanna, who was the wife of Chuza Chuzza. This is a fascinating thing many people miss in the New Testament. Chuzza was the accountant, if you will. That's not a good word, the chief accountant, the cfo. He was the CFO for Herod and his wife was a contributor to Jesus.
Don't tell me that the CFO for King Herod wasn't prosperous and therefore the wife, that wife was a woman of wealth and prominence and significance. But God used her to bless the ministry. There was Joseph of Arimathea I think that the lesson there is a man of such wealth and prominence and leadership that he had the governor, the Roman governor on his cell phone, on his speed dial.
He just basically walked in and ran the risk in order to minister to the body of Christ, to take the wounded, broken body off of the cross at some risk to himself, and to bury that body and care for it.
I pray that God will raise up men and women of wealth and prominence and leadership who will care for the body of Christ.
When Martin Luther, at the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, was excommunicated and declared outlaw by the Church of Rome, a German prince named Frederick the Wise took him in and shielded him at his at his castle.
Some people now denounce Frederick the Wise and say, oh, he did it for political reasons. He wasn't really a believer. He wasn't even really a Protestant. All the rest, I don't care about any of that. All I care about is that he did it.
And he did it with wealth and prominence and power.
But let me give you a more contemporary example.
There is a man, and I don't believe he would be hurt anyway if I told his name. His name is David Green, and he happens to be an acquaintance of mine, and I got to know him when I lived in Oklahoma. He is the owner of the Hobby Lobby chain.
It's single ownership.
In other words, David Greene owns all the Hobby Lobby stores. There are managers, people there, but he owns all the real estate. He owns the trucking line that ships all the stuff to Hobby Lobby.
He is the sole owner of the entire Hobby Lobby domain. He is worth not millions and not hundreds of millions. He is worth billions of dollars.
I interviewed him one time for a magazine article, and I went to his headquarters in Oklahoma City and interviewed him. And I asked him this question.
I said, Mr. Green, I know what an IPO on Hobby Lobby would do.
I'm not a sophisticate with regard to the stock market, but I'm pretty clear on what an IPO for Hobby. If you did an initial public offering and went public with Hobby Lobby, I can't even imagine the billions and billions of dollars you can own if you sold stock in this company.
I said, have you ever considered that? He said, sure, I've considered it. He said, don't you know the thousands of people that have come to me and pleaded with me to sell stock in Hobby Lobby? I said, well, do you mind if I ask why you've never done it? He said, I don't mind at all.
He said, if I Take the company public.
I don't care about losing control of the real estate. I don't care about losing control of anything except the giving.
He said, if I take it public, I have to report to a board of directors and therefore I lose control of the giving.
He said, the only reason I started this company, the only reason I have it, the only reason I've accumulated this wealth is the millions and millions of dollars that I can give away. And he said, I can't give that away if I have to report profit and loss to a board of directors. The reason I won't take it public, he said, is not because I don't want to lose the money. It's because I don't want to lose giving.
So there is a vast difference between being wealthy, having wealth and using that wealth for the good of God and for the kingdom, and between living in obsessive lust for wealth.
That's what Paul means when he says the love of money is the root of all evil.
Now, what do we make of all these things?
Paul is saying to these two young preachers?
He's saying, look, what you preach is important.
You can't just preach stupid stuff. You'll be held accountable for that.
And you can't just preach stuff that people want to hear and therefore will profit you financially. He said, you can't make merchandise of the gospel.
Your doctrine is important.
Sometimes we get the idea that doctrine isn't significant. I hear it all the time. I hear even, particularly in Pentecostal circles, I'm sorry to say.
I hear people say, oh, don't preach doctrine, don't preach doctrine. If you don't preach doctrine, what are you going to preach?
The problem with not preaching doctrine is that Paul says the Bible says preach sound doctrine.
So sound doctrine is what you want to hear in the pew. In the pew. The one thing you have, the one thing you have the right to expect from the pulpit. Yes, of course, you want charisma and leadership and, and that it is easy to listen to and all the rest of it. But the one thing, the non essential, the one, the non negotiable that you must not tolerate is, is wrong doctrine. That's where you've got to be able to say to the Pope, wherever you go to church, I know we have all kinds of people visiting. The one thing that we have to have is sound doctrine. But then Paul says, listen, it's not just theory. Somehow wrong doctrine leads to wrong living.
He says, the doctrine and character are inextricably bound up in each other.
He says the church needs balance, wholeness, love, grace, all of those things that he lists, that whole catalog of things that he lists. He says, quit arguing over stupid stuff.
Quit arguing over prepositions and dates and things. There are people that argue on and on and on. Not over, only about the beginning of the world. They argue, they're ready to kill each other over how the world will end.
And I promise you, I'm willing to stand here and guarantee you that no matter what you believe to be true about the second coming of Christ, you have some of it wrong.
I will not back down from that. There is nobody in this room that has it, all right?
And the fact of the matter is, arguing over. There are whole denominations that split over stuff, goofy stuff.
Paul says doctrine is important, character is important. But church filled with love and decency, imbalance and grace is also important. It's a letter of balance, of weaving it all together.
He also brings the same thing to bear with the issue of finances.
Look, if finances aren't important, then why does Paul, in multiple letters in the New Testament, ask and write people for finances?
Why do we receive an offering here? Why? Because those things have to happen.
I pray that God will prosper you. I pray that God will pour wealth into your life. I pray that it will not corrupt you and that it will not destroy you and that it will not. Not damage your character. But I pray that God will prosper you and that you will see that you're not to love that, but love God and use that Joseph of Arimathea did to care for the body of Christ.
So if I could speak to every young preacher in the world, if I could speak to them all at one time, I would say these things.
Preach sound doctrine.
Live a good, sound life.
Remember, the church is full of folks.
Sometimes they're going to be good, sometimes they're going to be slow bellies.
I love that phrase.
You're going to have the saints of God in your church, and every now and again you're going to have somebody that was born in Crete, liars and cheats and all the rest of it.
But Paul doesn't tell him, leave Crete, he says, stay there and teach them.
He doesn't say. He doesn't say, these people are bad. Kick them out of the church. He says, rebuke them, challenge them, teach them and love them.
If I could speak to every young preacher in the world, I'd say, learn the doctrines of the church and stay on sound doctrine. Don't preach goofy stuff.
Live a good, sound life.
Love the complicated people in your church and understand they are complicated. They are complicated. And sometimes you're going to say, somebody needs to come and deliver me from this group.
But the fact of the matter is, if you move from that group of complicated saints to the next one, guess what?
Their cousins go to that church.
And then he says, in the ministry, above all things, don't lose your soul on stuff.
Don't lose your soul on stuff.
Preach sound doctrine, live a good life, care for the people, believe for balance in the body of Christ.
Let me pray.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you'll take this simple little teaching tonight.
Use it somehow in our lives.
I thank you that Paul cared about these two young preachers. They wrote them these letters and that they read those letters and they were able to sustain and that they had great ministries. I thank you for these young ministers that became saints, St. Timothy and St. Titus. I thank you for them, God, for these young men who became bishops and leaders and teachers themselves and suffered persecution themselves as Paul did. But I also thank you that these letters are to us.
We receive it. We receive it tonight. God, in Jesus name, Amen. I know this is a very simple and basic teaching tonight. It's not an exciting sermon, but I hope you will take it to heart.
Sound doctrine, a clean life, balance in love in a complicated church, in a complicated world. Amen.
[00:42:40] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on X at Dr. Mark Rutland or visit his website, Dr.
Where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
