Now the part of the chapter that I want to focus on here is in Titus chapter 2 verse 7
where the Bible reads,
In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works,
and doctrines showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity.
And I want to preach tonight on the subject of a pattern of good works.
Now before he gets into saying that,
he goes through and gives instructions to these various demographics in the church.
He says, first of all, to the aged men, the older men.
He says in verse 2 that they are to be sober or serious,
brave, which also means serious, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.
The aged women likewise that they be in behavior as becometh holiness,
not false accusers, not given to much wine,
teachers of good things that they may teach the young women to be sober,
to love their husbands, to love their children,
to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands,
that the word of God be not blasphemed.
Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded,
in all things showing thyself a pattern of good works.
And so God is explaining here that in order for us to teach or preach to others,
in order for us to, for example, older ladies to teach the younger women,
it says that they have to live a certain way
that they might teach the younger women to love their husbands,
to love their children, to be discreet, to be chaste,
to be keepers at home, to be obedient to their own husbands.
You see, it's important if we're going to preach the word of God or teach others,
we need to be a pattern of good works.
We need to be the example that we need to be
so that people can look at our life and know how to live.
It shouldn't be a thing of, well, do as I say, not as I do.
Our lives should be a pattern for other people to follow.
Our lives should be an example for other people to follow.
Go to Philippians chapter 3.
Go back just a few pages in your Bible to Philippians chapter 3.
Philippians chapter number 3.
The Bible reads in Philippians 3.17,
Brethren, be followers together of me,
and mark them which walk,
so as ye have us for an example.
For many walk, but whom I have told you often,
and now tell you, even weeping,
that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ,
whose end is destruction,
whose God is their belly,
and whose glory is in their shame,
whom I have heard the things of.
The Bible's telling us there are a lot of bad examples out there.
He says, follow me,
mark them which walk,
mark them which are doing the right things,
because, he says, many walk,
of whom I have told you often,
and now tell you, even weeping,
that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.
So most people are living wrong.
Most role models that young people have
are leading them astray.
Most people that today's teenagers
and young people and even young adults
are looking up to as a role model
are leading them the wrong direction.
Their God is their belly.
Their glory is in their shame.
Their end is destruction.
And so there are just an abundance
of bad examples out there.
And children today,
they might idolize the athletes.
Many of them are sodomites.
None of them are in church on Sunday
because they're out in their tight pants
throwing a ball around on Sunday.
When they ought to be sitting in the house of God
and worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ
and making that a priority in their life.
Instead, a game becomes a priority for them
and throwing a ball around.
See, those are the role models that are out there.
The musicians that are out there
show a role model to young men of effeminacy,
of being a sissy,
of being worldly,
of everything that is against the Bible.
Hollywood gives all the wrong examples.
The ladies that are on television
are not dressed the way the Bible tells us
a lady should dress in modest apparel.
And so there are all these bad examples out there
and God is telling Titus and he's telling us today,
we need to be a pattern of good works.
We need to be a pattern that somebody else can follow.
We need to be a role model
and an example where we can say to someone,
as Jehu said,
come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.
Like Jesus Christ himself said,
follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.
We need to be somebody that's worth following.
There are people who look up to you.
Let's say you're a parent,
you're a father, you're a mother.
Your children are looking at you,
you are an example to them,
you're a role model to them,
and you need to be the right kind of example,
the right kind of role model.
Maybe, for example,
other children or young people in the church
are looking up to you.
It's funny,
Richard and Veronica got married yesterday
and boy, my kids, they love weddings.
And especially my daughter Miriam,
she loved that wedding.
And Rebecca,
they wanted to watch the video of it.
Right when we got home,
let's watch the video of the wedding.
Let's watch it again.
They love it.
And you know what?
They're looking at Richard and Veronica
and they're looking at them
and they're thinking to themselves,
wow, I want to be like them.
Whether Richard and Veronica realize that
or think about that,
little children are looking up to them thinking,
wow, look at that bride,
look at that groom,
look how cool it is.
Hey, I want to do it.
And it's funny because my daughter had always said,
you know, I'm never going to get married.
She's only four.
And she said, no, I'm not going to get married.
And I made a deal with her
that if she will stay in my house
and not get married,
when she's an adult,
if she'll stay home and just live with us,
that every Sunday night after church,
this is the deal that I broke up with her,
she'll get to go night swimming in the pool
with a spotlight,
also barbecued hot dogs,
and also pink soda.
Okay, those are the three things.
And she said, okay, I'll stay home.
You know, I'll live here.
But then after the wedding,
after the wedding yesterday,
she had changed her mind and said,
no, I'm not going to get married.
So what I'm saying is,
even, you know,
Richard and Veronica may not have even thought of such a thing,
but these young people are looking at them
and you also in the church,
you don't know who's looking at you thinking,
wow, he's a great guy in this area,
he's a cool guy,
or that's a guy that I'd like to be like,
or that's a lady that I'd like to be like.
We all have people that are looking up to us,
whether it's our own children,
whether it's other people's children,
whether it's just our friends and our coworkers
that look at us as somebody that they admire
for whatever reason they admire us.
They want to be like us.
Are we a pattern of good works?
Do you want the people in this church to be like you?
Would our church be a great church if everybody was like you?
Think about it.
Would you want everybody to be the soul winner that you are?
Would you want everybody to live the life that you live
and to live the life that you live
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday?
Your life ought to be such where you would think,
yes, I want people to follow my example
because I'm a pattern of good works,
not, oh man, I hope nobody's emulating me
because I'm doing everything wrong.
And Paul is telling Titus, be a pattern of good works.
Whether you like it or not,
people are following the example of your life.
You are setting a pattern behind you that people are following.
Your children are following.
Other people's children are following.
Other church members.
Maybe new believers in the church look to you
as somebody who's been saved longer.
Would you have the confidence to say like Paul,
hey, follow me?
There's a lot of bad examples, but follow me.
Or would you say, well, don't follow me
because I'm kind of blowing it, you know?
Good luck.
Find somebody else to follow.
We need to be the right example.
We need to be a pattern.
And I go to 2 Thessalonians 3.
If you're in Philippians,
it's just a few pages to the right in your Bible.
And again, bad examples of valid.
We need somebody that young people can look up to,
somebody that new believers can look up to
that's providing the right kind of example
that's going to lead people in the right direction
and say, as Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ,
that could show us an earthly,
that we don't have Jesus Christ physically living on this earth,
somebody that could show a human example today in 2011
of what a Christian should be like,
of what soul winning should be like,
of what preaching should be like,
of what being a godly lady should be like.
And he spoke to the elder women, and he said,
you need to live right that you might teach
the younger women to live right by your example,
by being a pattern of good works,
a pattern of how to be a godly lady that's discreet.
And boy, we are living in a day where discretion,
let me just get off on a rabbit trail,
discretion is out the window.
You know what discreet means, discretion?
It means you know what you should be bringing up
and what you shouldn't be bringing up.
And today we were walking down the street
and I saw a young lady, a teenage girl,
talking about the filthiest smut
with a couple of teenage boys,
just loudly, just laughing about it,
talking about just obscenity in the middle of the street,
just no discretion.
And it's from TV, it's from the music
that talks about the bedroom all the time
and talks about everything that's unwholesome.
And so, you know, we need some young ladies
that will grow up and be pure,
that will make their wedding day pure.
Well, they need some examples to follow.
They're going to show them a godly way to dress,
a godly way to act, a righteous example
that's a woman for them to follow.
Be that pattern of good works,
because people are following you.
2 Thessalonians 3, this is Paul speaking in verse number 6,
it says,
Now we command you, brethren,
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that you would draw yourselves
from every brother that walketh disorderly,
and not after the tradition which he received from us.
Now, I've heard some people say,
well, if somebody's saved, we should hang out with them,
no matter what they're doing,
no matter what their lifestyle.
Well, the Bible's saying,
here's a brother that's walking in sin,
he's walking disorderly.
The Bible says, withdraw yourself from that guy.
In 1 Corinthians 5, the Bible talked about a guy
who was coming to church,
and he was called a brother,
but he was living in open fornication
with his stepmother, of all people.
I mean, he's just openly fornicating with his dad's wife.
And Paul is saying, wait a minute,
this is commonly reported,
you're not doing anything about your actions,
you're not doing anything about it,
you're acting like it's normal.
And he said, put away from among yourselves
that wicked person.
Get that guy out of there,
you can't have that guy.
Why?
Because he's a pattern, that's why.
That's right.
That's why.
We had a couple that was coming to our church,
and they had just gotten saved,
they were newly saved,
just got baptized,
and they were living together,
but they weren't married,
which is sinful according to the Bible.
And I basically, they had just got saved,
I preached on it a few times,
I'm trying to teach them,
trying to let them grow,
but they're just continuing in that
as I preach to them.
They were both saved,
but they just were not adhering to God's word
in this area.
And so I basically, I came to them and said,
look, here's what the Bible says.
And I'd already preached it from the pulpit,
hoping that they would learn and grow and realize,
and I showed them in the Bible,
and I said, look, here's the bottom line.
You either need to stop living together,
stop living in fornication here,
or you need to get married,
or else you need to stop coming to our church.
Amen.
And you say, oh man, I can't believe that.
But you know what?
That's what the Bible said to do with fornicators.
It said that they need to be sent out of church.
And you say, oh, everybody's welcome.
Hey, that's from your little Hallmark greeting card.
This is a church where God's word is preached.
The Bible says,
I wrote unto you in an epistle
not to company with fornicators,
wherefore put away from among yourselves
that wicked person.
Period.
End of story.
Why?
Because I don't want my children
growing up in a church
where we just act like it's normal
for people to live together that aren't married.
It's not normal.
It's ungodly,
and they need a better pattern than that.
And the pattern that they're going to see
is that people who live together that aren't married
are kicked out of the house of God,
like the Bible says.
Amen.
And that's what we believe.
You say, why are you so worked up about it?
Because sometimes I feel like
I'm the only person left on the planet that believes that.
You guys, there's so much open fornication.
And now churches are saying,
let the sodomites in.
I mean, that's how extreme it's got.
Just let everybody in.
No, no.
This is a church.
This is a house of God.
It's to be careful.
We're not saying be perfect.
Nobody's perfect.
We're all sinners,
but we're not all fornicators.
And the Bible says,
put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
And my sister,
there was a time in her life
when she went to a church
and she wanted to grow in the faith
and she was trying to grow in grace
and she needed some encouragement
and some godly fellowship at that time in her life.
She went to a singles department
and there was a barbecue
at the home of two people
that were living together in sin
and they were hosting the church barbecue.
And she said, you know what?
Forget this.
I can get this out in the world.
And that was a stumbling block to her.
That was discouraging to her.
Because she was seeing the hypocrisy
of a church that's supposedly standing on the word of God
and yet promoting people living together in fornication.
Now look, I understand that people don't know better.
That's fine.
They need to get saved
and even if they're saved,
they need to be taught the word of God
or they need to be explained to them lovingly.
But there comes a time
when somebody just needs to get the boot
because they just are not interested
in living for God at all
and they want to set an example for my daughter and my son
and you say, oh, what about that person's feelings?
What about my kids?
My kids are going to grow up in a church
where we don't tolerate fornication.
It's not tolerated.
And they're going to grow up and be pure.
And they're going to grow up
and get married like the Bible says
and keep the marriage begged
where that activity is confined to.
That's what I believe.
That's what I'm standing on.
That's what the word of God says
because we need to have a pattern.
But when all this stuff just becomes acceptable,
it becomes a bad pattern.
It becomes a pattern where people come to church
and my daughter is looking up to women
that are somebody's concubine.
You know, that's what the Bible calls it
and not their wife, but their concubine.
A concubine is somebody that you sleep with
that you're not married to.
But it says in verse number seven,
after it says, hey, we need to withdraw ourselves
from every brother.
Brother is talking about a fellow saved Christian.
We need to withdraw ourselves from every brother
that walketh disorderly
and not after the tradition which he received of us.
He says in verse seven,
for yourselves know how you ought to follow us.
Again, talking about being a pattern, an example.
He said, for we behave not ourselves disorderly among you,
neither did we eat any man's bread for naught,
but wrought with labor and travail night and day
that we might not be chargeable to any of you,
not because we have not power,
but to make ourselves an ensemble
for you to follow us.
So what's he saying?
And I'll get into the next part,
but he's saying here that when they were with them,
when they were with those in Thessalonica,
Paul was, Paul and Silvanus, he's saying,
when we were with you, we worked day and night.
And here's why.
Because they were trying to preach the gospel
and get people saved,
but they also did not take any money from anybody.
So basically, they had to pay for their own living.
They had to pay for a place to stay.
They had to pay for their food.
You know, just living expenses.
So Paul was actually making tents.
He was doing a manual labor job.
See, he's moonlighting as it were.
He had two jobs.
He's building tents,
and he's also preaching the gospel
and getting people saved.
So he's doing both at the same time.
Now, he's saying, look, I didn't have to do that.
Because in 1 Corinthians 9,
he preached that God has ordained
that those who preach the gospel
should live of the gospel.
So he's saying, you know, it's perfectly normal
for a preacher or a pastor to be paid
to do his job of being a preacher or a pastor.
But he said, wait a minute.
I didn't do that.
I chose to forego my paycheck
that I might work day and night
with my own hands.
Why?
He says in verse 9,
not because we have not power.
He's saying it's not because
I don't have the right to be paid for what I'm doing.
But he says,
Take ourselves and then sample unto you to follow us.
And here's why.
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you,
that if any would not work,
neither should he eat.
And watch this.
He says, for we hear that there are some
which walk among you disorderly,
working not at all, but are busybodies.
Now then that are such,
we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ
that with quietness they work and eat their own bread.
So this town of Thessalonica or this church
had a problem with people who didn't want to work.
He said, we heard that there are people there
who don't want to work.
They're not working at all.
And so he said,
we wanted to show an example of hard work.
So we worked day and night
and we paid all our own bills
without taking a paycheck from the church
just to show you how to do it,
just to give an example,
just to be a pattern for you to follow.
Just like when I started the church
and I was working a job full time
and starting the church,
part of the reason why I did that,
I could have raised support
or had some other source of income
or just even took money from the offerings that came in.
The reason I chose to do it that way
was to be a pattern
because I know that there are other young preachers
that could follow that example
and I could show them,
hey, it is possible to start a church without money.
Here's how I did it.
And a couple of guys have done it since then
because I showed a pattern of,
hey, it doesn't take any money to preach.
Preaching is free.
Singing is free and soul winning is free
and getting together and preaching is free.
So we did it.
We just started in a house
and just every week we bought a few more things.
I mean, as the offerings came in,
we bought chairs, we bought song books
and we just started with nothing as a pattern.
And plus it helped for me for several years
and even to this day I work a job.
Now I'm about half and half between church and business
but it helps me to be able to show an example
of saying, hey, you know, I work my job
and then I'm also going soul winning also.
You know, because some people say,
like, soul winning is your job.
You're the pastor, you know.
But basically it shows, hey, you can do both.
You know, you can work your job.
You can be with your family.
You can also go soul winning.
It's an example to follow.
It's a way to show.
So that's what Paul is saying here.
He's saying, look, I wanted to show you how to do it.
I didn't want to just tell you how to do it.
I didn't want to just say, hey, you can be working hard,
you know, and get out there and work.
And I'm just reading my Bible all day
and praying and going soul winning.
Those are great things
and he would have been totally within his right to do it
if he just preached all day and that was his job.
But he said, no, I wanted to show you what hard work is.
I wanted to show you what it is to work your fingers
to the bone and get some muscle and work hard
and build tents and do a manual labor job
because he knew that that's what that church needed to see.
They needed to see somebody work hard
and show them how to do it.
And the main gist of this sermon
about being a pattern of good works
is don't just tell people how to do it,
show them how to do it.
And this goes for a lot of different areas.
Go to Matthew 11.
Matthew chapter 11.
And some people have looked at it and said,
well, you know, Pastor Anderson, he works a job
so therefore every pastor needs to work a job.
But that's not true.
I mean, if a pastor is a full-time pastor, that's great.
He can spend all his time on pastoring and preaching.
That's all fine and dandy.
That's good, okay.
It's not that somebody has to do that.
It's just I wanted to be an example of that
because I know that there are a lot of guys
who are thinking about starting a church
or want to start a church,
and they don't have the finances
or they don't have the support.
And, you know, nobody would have supported me.
Let's just get real.
You know what I mean?
Let's just get real.
That would have worked out.
But anyway, Matthew chapter 11, verse 1.
I love this verse.
Now, chapter 10 is a famous chapter
because that's where Jesus is sending them out to preach.
He's sending them out two by two,
and he's having them preach in the towns and villages,
and he's giving them all these instructions
about going to all these different towns
and preaching the gospel.
When he finishes up those instructions,
look what he says in chapter 11, verse 1.
And it came to pass when Jesus had made an end
of commanding his 12 disciples.
And what was he telling them to do?
Flip back to chapter 10, verse 5.
He said, these 12 Jesus sent forth
and commanded them, saying,
Go not into the way of the Gentiles
and into any city of the Samaritans, any not,
but go rather the lost sheep of the house of Israel,
and as you go, preach,
saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Go back to chapter 11.
So he's sending them out two by two
to all the towns and villages to do what?
To preach.
Look what it says in verse 11.
When he had made an end of commanding his 12 disciples,
he departed thence to do what?
To teach and to preach in their cities.
So what's he going to do in chapter 11, verse 1?
Exactly what he just told them to do.
So it's not like he's just telling them to go do it.
He says, no, I'm going to tell you to go do it,
and then I'm going to go do the same thing.
And that's why the Bible says in Acts chapter 1, verse 1,
the former treatise said,
I made Otheopolis of all that Jesus began,
both to do and teach.
Jesus didn't just teach.
He did and taught.
He showed them how to do it.
And it seems like people who are the non-doers
are the ones who want to teach sometimes how to do it.
My dad had an expression that he would always say.
He was not a very good teacher.
You know how the Bible says a pastor is supposed to be apt to teach?
Some people have an aptitude for teaching, and some don't.
So my dad had an expression he would always use.
He would say, those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach.
And I'm not saying that's true,
but that's what he would always say.
And he would, you know, he was one that he wasn't,
the reason that he wasn't a good teacher
is he would always just want to do it himself.
He'd never really let, you know, he'd be working on the car,
and he was just, let me do it, you know.
And then, you know, he'd do an electrical, hey, let me try.
And then you'd start doing it, and you're doing it a little longer.
No, no, no, I'll just do it, you know.
So he never would give you the freedom to mess things up
and, you know, do it and learn.
But, I mean, I learned a lot of great things from my dad,
but other things he just didn't have the patience to let you do it.
He would always say, those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach.
Now, that's true in a lot of cases, unfortunately.
A lot of the biggest know-it-alls
and people who want to tell you how to do it
are the ones who aren't doing it or can't do it
or have failed to do it.
Now, for example, we can look at parenting.
You know, the people who know the most about parenting
are people who don't have any kids.
You know, they're the experts on parenting.
Singles and married people who don't have any children,
they have all the answers.
They can tell you exactly how to do it.
But, see, I'm not looking for somebody to tell me how to do it.
I want somebody to show me how to do it.
And they know all about, you know, raising children
even though they don't have any children.
And then, also, here's a big one.
People who don't do any soul winning,
they're the experts on soul winning.
Yeah.
You know, and I remember so many times
when I first started out soul winning,
when I was just 17, I just started soul winning,
and I was just getting into knocking doors.
I just started going to a church that was doing it,
and they were taking me out, and we're knocking doors
and preaching the gospel.
And so many people who were my old friends,
they would take me aside and say, you know,
you're doing this all wrong.
You know, what I would tell them
what I was doing and everything.
No, no, no, you're doing it wrong.
And these are people who never did any soul winning,
never got anybody saved,
but they're going to tell me I'm doing it all wrong.
And they'd say, you know, no, you can't do it this way,
you're going to turn people away,
you're going to turn people down,
you don't know what you're doing.
And I would always say to them the same thing.
I'd say, okay, well, I have an idea.
Why don't I just do it the way you do it?
You know, well, just show me what you do,
tell me what you do, take me out to...
And that would shut them up real fast
because they're not doing it at all.
But they know all about it.
And you know what?
I find that the people whose salvation doctrine
is the goofiest are the people who aren't out soul winning.
Because the Bible says that some people, you know,
when they ought to be teachers,
they have need that won't teach them again,
which be the first principles of the doctrine of Christ,
and are become such as have need of milk
and not of strong meat.
For everyone that uses milk
is unskillful in the word of righteousness
for he is a babe,
but strong meat belongeth to them
that are of full age,
even those who by reason of use
have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Who can discern good and evil?
Who can discern right and wrong?
Who can discern the word of God?
The one who uses it.
The one who has by use
learned how to discern from good and evil.
The Bible says,
Be ye doers of the word,
and not hearers,
only deceiving your own selves.
For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer,
he is lying unto a man,
beholding his natural face to glass,
for he beholdeth himself,
and goeth his way,
and forgetteth straightway whatsoever a man he was,
but whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty,
and continueth therein,
he being not a forgetful hearer,
but a doer of the work.
This man shall be blessed in his deed.
The Bible says,
If you're not a doer of the work,
you're a forgetful hearer.
People who aren't doing the work,
they don't know what they're talking about.
They don't even remember what the Bible said.
It goes in one ear and out the other with them,
because they're not doing it.
Those who do not use the word of God
cannot discern good and evil,
because it's those who by reason of use
have their senses exercised
to discern both good and evil.
The one who's out preaching the Gospel,
getting people saved,
showing them the word of God,
going through it with real human beings,
and preaching to them,
and talking to them about the Bible and doctrine,
and those are the people who understand what salvation is.
The guy who's in some library all day,
and he's, all right, you're getting to learn?
Hey, I'm all for reading and learning,
but you've got to use what you've learned.
And the guy who's just doing nothing
but just sitting around theorizing
and philosophizing somewhere,
and just going so down deep
and staying down long and coming up dry,
I'm all for going down deep,
but you've got to go use it.
And the guy who's just got his head
in the clouds or he's in an ivory tower somewhere,
these deep theologians that literally live
on some Christian college campus,
they never even leave that campus hardly.
They live in this little alternate reality.
They're not even going out into the world
and into the ghettos and into the highways and edges
and talking to the heathen of this world.
You know, they don't know what they're talking about,
and they get into all this messed up doctrine
like Calvinism and dispensationalism.
They get into all this messed up theology
because they're not out using the word of God,
out preaching the gospel.
And they dream up all these theories
about what salvation is and blah, blah, blah
instead of actually knowing what they're talking about
by doing the work.
And people who actually go out and preach the gospel
and get people saved,
and they're the ones who know about the doctrine.
It keeps you doctrinally straight.
Here's what I'm trying to say.
If you don't go so any, your salvation doctrine
and your so many doctrines are going to get messed up
because you're not doing the work,
you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing,
and it's going to get messed up
because you're not doing it,
you're going to forget truth of the Bible.
And whenever I've seen people start going into strange,
and the Bible says,
be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines,
when I see people going off on doctrine,
a lot of times it coincides with them quitting soul-winning.
They quit doing the work that they're supposed to.
And one pastor I'm thinking of in particular,
he was legitimately not soul-winning
because he was very ill, he was bedridden.
So he couldn't get out soul-winning.
But then that's when I noticed that doctrine started changing
because he's sitting around too much,
he's not doing the work.
And it's a shame.
And then it seems like when he got back out
and started going out soul-winning again,
that kind of sharpened up his doctrine.
Because you get a warped view when you're not doing the work,
when you're not using what you've learned.
And it's just all theory in your mind
instead of being there with the Holy Spirit within you
and upon you, working through you,
and you're preaching the Word of God.
That keeps you straight, that's what I've noticed.
But not only that, we've got to lead by example.
And if you're going to teach somebody how to win souls,
you've got to be a soul-winner yourself.
And a lot of pastors, they preach on soul-winning,
but then it's like, oh, nobody in my church goes soul-winning.
We don't go soul-winning.
But it's because the pastor doesn't go soul-winning
or he goes very little or he's not fired up about it
or he doesn't do it that much.
He needs to be a pattern for good works.
He needs to lead the way by example
and not tell the people to go soul-winning,
but to show them how to go soul-winning.
Hey, come with me, I'll show you how to do it.
Let me show you more than 59 minutes at a stretch.
Let me show you that you can go out
and really put in some time and put in some work.
Be a pattern of good works.
The Bible says that the pastor is not to lord over the flock,
but to be an ensemble to the flock.
To lead by example, to get out in front
and show how it's done.
Not to just say, don't do this.
No, let me show you how to do it.
I don't want somebody telling me how to raise my kids
unless they have children that are well-behaved.
By the way, you know who else wants to tell you how to raise your kids?
It's people that don't have kids and it's people whose kids turned out wrong.
They'll tell you, well, my kids all turned out wrong
and here's why because of this, this, and this
and that's why you need to do this.
If you knew why your kids turned out wrong,
you would have probably fixed it
and then they would have turned out right.
I don't want to hear from you.
I don't want to hear from somebody who's on their fourth wife
and their fourth husband to tell me marriage advice.
Don't do what I did.
I'd rather.
If you want to talk to people who are twice divorced,
you're going to find tons of people like that
that can give you the answers.
Find me the one who stayed married for decades.
That's more rare today.
Find me the one who has a happy marriage for decades.
Find me the one whose children have grown up
and are serving God and are righteous children.
That's who I would give my advice from on how to raise kids.
I would go to those people and say,
hey, show me what have you done?
What have you done that caused you to be so successful?
Not just telling me a theory,
but actually giving me real life this is what happened.
I was at a restaurant one time
and the workers were just fantastic.
It was a great restaurant.
I walked up to the manager and just said,
can you teach me how you have such a good restaurant
because every time I come here,
the workers are working hard and everybody's happy
and everybody's doing a good job.
Explain to me the principles by which you manage this restaurant
because I want to be able to know how to do that
in my business that I run.
I want to know how to manage my employees better.
Give me advice.
That's who I want to get advice from.
Somebody who can be a pattern.
We need to be a pattern of good work.
We need to show people how to do it.
We need to show people what it's like
to have a godly home and a godly family
and to be a successful soul winner
and to be a godly parent and so forth.
We need to show people how to do it.
Now, look.
People's children are going to turn out like they are
in many cases,
and they're going to follow the pattern
that their parents set
because all the way back to Genesis chapter 1,
the Bible says that everything brings forth
after its own kind.
We need to be careful that we're not setting bad patterns
for our children and anyone else who's following us,
but especially our children.
There are a lot of examples in the Bible of this.
If you remember, Abraham had this thing
where he would go places and he would lie
and say that his wife was his sister.
Remember that?
He would tell people,
oh, she's my sister.
She's not my wife.
Well, what did Isaac do?
Same thing.
Okay, how many people in the Bible did that?
You don't see a bunch of people in the Bible.
It's kind of a weird thing to do.
I've never told anybody that my wife is my sister.
Oh, hey, this is just my sister.
And he did that because his wife was really beautiful,
and he was afraid.
He was in kind of an even land,
and he was afraid
because he was going to try to kill him
and take his wife from him.
So he was just really beautiful.
And so he would lie and say it's his sister.
And it got him into trouble.
Well, Isaac did the same thing
because he saw a man do it.
And so sometimes we're setting a pattern
without even trying,
and our children were following our footsteps.
Look at Eli.
Eli set a bad pattern for his children.
The Bible says that he was a gluttonous man.
He was a very heavy man.
And his children took that to a whole new level
because not only were they gluttonous,
and they would eat the fat of the offerings before.
The fat was supposed to be burned under the lard.
They were like, give me that fat.
I want to eat that lard.
You know, they wanted it.
And it was supposed to be offered
in part of the burnt sacrifice,
and they were just supposed to take the meat
after it was cooked with a fork.
But no, they said, no, we want the raw meat
so we can cook it nice and fatty,
and that's how we want to eat it.
But then they took it to another level.
Eli was a gluttonous man.
He was a very heavy man, the Bible says.
But there's no mention of him, you know,
committing adultery or being a fornicator
or anything like that.
But the Bible says that his two sons,
they followed in his gluttonous ways,
but then also it says that they committed fornication
with the women who came to the house of God.
They would commit fornication with women
in the church, as it were.
And so they took it to a new level.
You know, Eli was fulfilling his fleshly appetites.
Well, they decided to fulfill even more appetites.
And God got so angry with them,
he caused them to be killed in battle
because he was so angry with them.
And the Bible's clear, they died and went to hell
because God said that they would never be,
that they would not be saved.
He was sick of them, and they were not even believers.
They did not know the Lord.
They did not call upon the name of the Lord.
And he said, I'm sick of these guys.
They're going to die in battle.
They're going to go to hell.
That was a bad pattern that Eli said.
I don't think Eli was a horrible person at all.
I think he was a pretty good guy.
But he had that one problem that he never dealt with.
And then his kids picked it up and took it even further
and it destroyed them.
Look at David.
We just talked about it on Wednesday night.
David set a pattern for his children.
David married extra wives.
You know, he married one wife,
and then he picked up another wife,
Abigail the Carmelitis.
Then he picked up another wife,
and hit no one with the Jezreelitis.
And then he had some concubines
because he violated God's command to only have one wife.
One man, one woman, as it was from the beginning.
Solomon took that to a whole new level
and married 700 wives.
Because he was the king, he had all his wealth,
he married 700 wives.
Because if you're going to have seven, why not 700?
His dad set a bad pattern, a bad precedent,
and he took it to a whole new extreme.
Then Solomon was a bad example to Rehoboam.
Because then Rehoboam came along,
and Rehoboam did not have the wealth that Solomon had.
And you know, 700 wives is pretty expensive.
One wife is expensive.
But anyway, you know, multiply that by 700, okay?
You're going to have a lot of money.
So basically, Rehoboam,
he didn't have the same wealth and power that Solomon had.
Because of Solomon's sins,
where he built altars under false gods and later in life,
his outlandish women caused him to sin.
Because of those sins that he committed,
he started losing some of his power, his prestige.
He started losing the kingdom.
And of course, Rehoboam lost ten of the tribes of the kingdom.
So Rehoboam was only ruling over a couple of tribes.
He didn't have the power. He didn't have the wealth.
But he did have many wives.
And the Bible says he desired more.
He's like, man, you know, I can't be like dad.
I want to have 700.
I'll tell my aunt I forget how many he had.
I think it was 30 or something.
Somewhere around that time, all right.
He had about 30 wives. But it says he desired many.
He desired more.
And by the way, if you have 30 wives and you still desire more,
are you getting the picture?
You're probably never going to be satisfied.
The problem is you.
You know, you have 30 wives,
and that's not enough for you, Rehoboam.
But where did he learn that?
Well, he learned it from Solomon.
Where did Solomon learn that?
Well, he got it from David.
David was a great guy, but he made that indiscretion
of multiplying wives.
And the Bible said in Deuteronomy of the king,
he shall not multiply wives.
That was a commandment given unto him,
not to multiply wives.
That's what they did.
And it was an example that was passed out to their children.
I like to say this.
What the parents do in moderation,
the children will do in excess.
You know, you play around with sin in your life,
and the children will take it to a whole new level in many cases,
because you've already set the pattern.
You've already set the precedent for them.
But the converse is also true.
You can be a good pattern for your children.
How about this pattern?
Because when we think of a pattern, what do we think of?
Something that repeats, right?
A pattern is something that repeats.
Like, for example, let's say my neighbors notice that,
you know, every morning I pull out of the driveway
at 6.30 a.m., every single...
You know, isn't that a pattern that they see developing?
Now, the Bible says in all things,
we're to show ourselves a pattern of good works.
That's a repetition of good works,
a repetition of good behavior.
Here's a good pattern.
How about we always go to church?
Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.
That's a good pattern.
And, you know, I grew up that way.
And then when I became an adult,
the Bible says train up a child in the way he should go
when he's old and not depart from it.
So I grew up with a pattern of just Sunday morning,
go to church.
Sunday night, church.
Wednesday night, church.
And just over and over and over and over
I got into that pattern.
How about a pattern of soul winning on a weekly basis
or whatever basis that you do?
How about a pattern of constantly going out to someone?
How about a pattern of daily Bible reading?
Every day reading the Bible.
You see, if you read the Bible with your child every day
for 365 days a year for the first 18 years of their life,
when they turn 18, I have a funny feeling on the next day
they're going to open their Bible and read it.
Because that pattern has been well established in their life.
A pattern of good works, of reading the Scriptures,
reading the Bible, a pattern of going to church.
I mean, I know people who honestly,
they didn't really have that much desire
to serve God with their life.
But at least they stayed in church
because they were just in that pattern.
They're just used to it.
And we need to set a pattern that people can follow
and show an example of repeated good behavior
in season, out of season.
Just repeatedly people keep saying the same pattern
over and over again.
The same consistent going to church,
the same Bible reading, the same prayer,
the same soul winning, the same type of preaching,
the same type of good works,
and they can see that pattern and follow it.
What's the opposite of a pattern?
How about something that's just random?
Chaotic.
You know, a pattern would be something
that we see repetition of.
The opposite of that would be something that's just random.
There's no pattern.
There's no rhyme or reason.
You know, sometimes we watch Phil Thought TV
and sometimes we turn it off.
Sometimes we go to church
and sometimes we just don't feel like it.
We just go, you know, do something else.
Sometimes we read the Bible.
Sometimes we just keep reading the Bible for several weeks.
Sometimes we abstain from drinking alcohol.
Other times we drink and be merry
because tomorrow we die.
You know, sometimes we go soul winning.
Sometimes we don't.
Now look, obviously nobody is perfectly consistent all the time.
Obviously life has its ups and downs.
But shouldn't there be some kind of a pattern developing
of righteous behavior?
Hey, I see a pattern here.
I hope my neighbors, you know,
I hope they're not like pacing out my house.
But I hope that they do see a pattern
of me going to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.
They're like, oh, that's when he's gone.
That's when he's gone.
That's why I have dogs and alarms
and, you know, gooey traps.
So we need to set a pattern that people can see.
You know, you're confusing your children
if they don't see a pattern.
You know, when what's right this week is wrong next week
and what's wrong this week is right next week
and it seems like there's just no consistency.
And then you're constantly, you know, you're going to this,
you know, we're Baptist this week
and next week we're Methodist
and then we're going to be Presbyterian for a while.
You know, oh, I'm just trying to expose them to all religions.
You know, well, what do you want,
expose them to all the lies?
Why don't you just expose them to the truth?
That should be enough.
And if this isn't the truth, then go find the truth.
But I wouldn't sit there and just want to expose them
to every false belief and false system.
I'd want to show them some kind of a pattern of,
hey, this is what's right.
This is consistently what we're going to do,
what we stand for.
We're not changing what we believe every week.
We're not changing the standards of right and wrong every week.
We're not changing the rules every week.
You know, there's a pattern of good works
again and again and again and again.
And so as a church, as individuals,
we need to be a pattern of good works.
Our church should be a pattern church.
Your home should be a pattern home.
And you say, well, I don't have kids.
If you're a man in this church, you're still setting a pattern.
People are looking at you.
And you might think, well, I'm not that cool of a guy.
Kids are not idolizing me.
I'm not Mr. Cool.
But you know what?
You never know who is looking to you.
And they see the pattern of how often you come to church.
And what if they look at you and they think,
well, that guy's so cool.
I want to grow up and be like that guy.
You're one that just comes to church randomly every once
in a while.
And you're worldly.
And you're not really on board with the word of God
and preaching to God in school.
And so you're being the wrong player.
And people are following you.
And I hope that you're being a good example for my children.
And let me ask you this.
Do you want my voice to turn out like you?
What if my voice turned out like you?
Would that be a good thing?
It ought to be, because you ought
to be a pattern of good works.
Or what about the ladies?
Do you want my little girls to grow up and be just like you?
Would that be a good outcome for my children?
Because you are influencing them.
Now, obviously, my wife and I are influencing them the most.
But you're influencing them as well.
Do you want them to grow up and turn out like you?
That should be a good sign of whether you're
the right kind of pattern of good works that you need to be.
Work on being a pattern.
Let's prioritize that word of prayer.
Father, please help us to not just talk the talk.
Help us to walk the walk and to show a pattern of good works.
Not to just sporadically, every once in a while,
do something good.
But rather to have just a system in place
where we're just in season, out of season.
We have a pattern of doing right.
Help us to be an example that people would follow.
And we love you, Lord.
And thank you for being the ultimate pattern.
And thank you for the ability to read
about the life of Jesus Christ in Matthew, Mark, Luke,
John, getting the ultimate pattern of what a human being
should live their life like.
Help us to follow that pattern and to set a pattern
that others can follow.
And in Jesus' name we pray.