(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

All right. First of all, I just want to thank you all for inviting me out to come and preach. Special thank you to Brother Weeb and to Pastor Thompson. Appreciate the hospitality. It's always very nice to treat people very well. Thank you for the lodging and everything. So it's really, I'm really excited to be here. And you know, honestly, you're coming in here. I don't know a whole lot about you all. I don't know a whole lot about your church. I was speaking with Pastor Thompson even just before the service tonight. I wanted to get, I haven't been able to follow along really closely with how everything's been going here, but just being here right now is just extremely exciting for me. I love, I love seeing the churches getting started and in the early stages of development and seeing this group of people, which I haven't even had a chance to speak with all of you yet, but seeing, I could tell that there's a people here that have a zeal and a desire to serve God and you want to do things the right way. And, and my understanding with this church is that it started off with people who wanted to go soloing and hold some Bible studies and be able to congregate together with like-minded believers and be able to just serve the Lord, right? And that, and that's, Hey, that's what it's all about, right? It's what we want to do as believers. And when people have that desire and that zeal to want to do that, that's awesome. You have something special here. And over the years, I guess you've been meeting together and doing, holding Bible studies, but still trying to seek out that, you know, leadership and sponsorship and trying to get a church involved and a pastor involved to be able to help really bring things together and continue to do things and do things under the proper authority as well. And the Bible teaches that, and I'm glad to hear that this is a church and a group of people that care about that, that really do care about things being done the right way. And unfortunately, you know, there's too many people in general just want to go rogue and kind of just do their own thing. But what, you know, when your heart is right with the Lord and you want to do things the right way, God will bless you for that. And this is a great weekend. I thank you again for the honor of being here to be able to help celebrate, even just a little bit, with the ordination of Brother Wiebe, becoming the full-time pastor of this church, which is awesome. And I'm super just excited and happy to hear about that. And what I'm going to teach on this evening, obviously this is all just straight from the Bible, and some of it may be applicable and some of it not as applicable to your specific situation, but the truth still stands. And what I want to do is I want to show you a lot of the similarities between, basically with new leadership, even though Brother Wiebe has kind of had a leadership position here for a long time anyways, as being evangelist and then becoming pastor, the authority is changing from being under Pastor Thompson and in that authority role, now to being completely independent from Sure Foundation Baptist Church and Pastor Thompson and going to Evangelist Wiebe. And what we see here in the life of Joshua is kind of a life of a man of God who comes into his own and then ends up being, you know, ultimately replacing Moses's position, right? And there's a lot of great things we could learn through the early part especially. I'm not even going to go through like the book of Joshua, really we're kind of going to end with the Old Testament Joshua chapter 1. We're going to look back at some of the early days of Joshua and see how that's very relevant with leaders, with the mission, with everything. And the title of my sermon this evening is, Is New Leaders Same Mission? Okay, it's not the best title, I'm not that great at title making, okay I'm not that clever, but I know Brother Wiebe has been on the ground here meeting with you week after week, you know, so yes he's still a leader but like I said that higher authority still exists and is relevant, is very relevant, very important because it is the biblical way of doing things and we'll end up hopefully by the end of this sermon you'll realize why that is so important. But let's, we started here in Exodus chapter 17, great story of course, I mean I love this story so much, it's so inspiring, but we're going to start looking here at verse number 8 with this battle with Amalek. Verse number 8 the Bible reads, Then came Amalek and fought with Israel and Rephidim. And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men and go out, fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand. So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Eren, and her went up to the top of the hill. And of course we know, we see this when Moses holds up his hands, he holds up his staff, then Israel's winning and then when he lets his arms down, then Amalek starts to win in this battle. But what I want to kind of draw your attention to is that first of all we're jumping into this with Joshua being a leader, right? We're not going through the whole life of Joshua. Joshua's already in a leadership role. Joshua's boots on the ground and he's leading the charge. Now Moses is the one that has the most authority amongst the children of Israel, right? He's at the top. But what we have here, he's kind of removed from the group. He's up on top of the hill. Yeah, he said basically he's working with God, he's praying to God, he's doing the spiritual thing while Joshua's got his boots on the ground and leading the charge and leading the men into battle. And I think this can be a little representative of, you know, new church plants and you've got leadership on the ground and the boots on the ground going out, hitting the streets, knocking on doors, doing the day-to-day business while you have other leadership back praying and guiding and giving direction from a little bit farther away. And this is a great example of that and ultimately we see then, of course, Joshua discomforts Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. So it's not like Joshua's not getting all these victories. Of course, it's a great victory. Joshua's doing a great work even prior to the book of Joshua where he literally is leading the children of Israel into the promised land and continuing to fight many, many more battles, right? This is still early on in his days but he has already this leadership role that's extremely important and he's following this instruction under Moses. Now, turn if you would to Exodus chapter 24. Sometimes it's easy to be so focused on the main characters when we read the Bible that we kind of miss some of these smaller details but when Moses went to Mount Sinai and he communed with God, remember he had to wear the veil because his face shone so bright and he was so close with God and he's literally receiving a Ten Commandments from God in the stones. Well, Joshua was with him. Joshua was with Moses when he went up into that mount. The Bible says in verse number 12 of Exodus 24 and the Lord said unto Moses, come up to me into the mount and be there and I will give thee tables of stone and a law and commandments which I have written that thou mayest teach them. And Moses rose up and his minister Joshua and Moses went up into the mount of God. So Joshua was there as a servant, as a minister to serve Moses and ultimately of course that's what the ministry is. That's what pastorship is. That's what leading is in the church environment is ministry. It's service and you have to learn how to be a good minister. You have to learn how to be a good servant before you could ever hope to become into a position of being in a leadership role within a church. That is of utmost importance. Turn if you would to Numbers chapter 14. While you're turning there I'm going to grab my bottle of water. Excuse me. Numbers chapter 14. Here's kind of a a very solid, a very important attribute when it comes to Joshua and when it comes to anyone that's going to be ordained into leadership and especially the pastorship because that's the the highest role that we have in New Testament churches is being a pastor of a church. And I want to make sure just for the benefit of this church that everyone understands how important this is and the type of man that's being sought after to fill this role. And we look at a man like Joshua and this is relevant to New Testament churches. I think we can learn a lot from this. Look at verse number six of Numbers chapter 14. We're going to see a story here when the spies were sent out to spy out the land of Israel before they actually were going to cross over and begin their battles. They sent out spies to just get the lay of the land and if you remember the story of course 10 of them came back and they had an evil report saying that like oh man there's giants and they've got walls and they've got chariots and stuff there's no way we could ever do this like like this is crazy we're just going to get slaughtered and that's my paraphrase of it and then of course you had Caleb and Joshua who said no no we can do this right and what's important about this is we see Joshua's making this stand a public stand when it's not popular because the popular opinion was with the group of people with the 10 out of 12 right the 10 that were saying no we need to go back into Egypt and they're already starting to think of like hey let's let's make a new leader among us and let's just go back into Egypt because it was better for us there which they'd already been saying that kind of stuff in the in the wilderness uh anyways but Joshua had the integrity to one stand with Moses when times got tough he was standing with the man of God but even more importantly he just stood with God and what was right according to the Bible according to the war of the Lord verse number six the Bible says in Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh which were of them that searched the land rent their clothes and they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel saying the land which we pass through to search it is an exceeding good land if the Lord delight in us then he will bring us into this land and give it us a land which flows with milk and honey only rebel not ye against the Lord neither fear ye the people of the land for they are bred for us their defense is departed from them and the Lord is with us fear them not this is an awesome attribute of Joshua's willing to stand against public opinion stand against the people who are literally trying to oppose them now and go back into Egypt Joshua makes a stand and and what's most important he said hey don't rebel against the Lord God promised us this land God is with us God you think God is with the heathen God's not with the people of the land God's with us so you need to not fear the people of the land it may look like they have all these defenses it's a facade because if God is for us who could be against us they could have all these built up walls they could have all this you know they're weapons of war or whatever it doesn't matter because God's not going to make it prosper for them if he's with us he says they're bred for us they're going to provide us our sustenance they're not going to going to hurt us have faith in the Lord of course we know how that how that ultimately goes down they don't end up going into uh the promised land at that time they end up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years but Joshua had that heart and look and Joshua stuck with it too because had they been able to go over and been victorious that's great that would have been easier than having to wait around for 40 years now y'all been gathering together a group of people wanting to have just you know a church officially church going here for a while before you even had that right approximately how many years were y'all meeting up together six years six years that's a that's that's a long time to be gathering and meeting and not actually having the promised land like you want you know but you're still staying with it you're not losing faith you're not losing sight you're you know it's not always easy it's not exactly what you thought might happen it's you know you you stay with it and stay faithful and then you end up being blessed and and you need to have people who can have that ticket stand up and have that resilience and have that boldness and have that courage and be able to continue and stay steadfast to be able to to bring everybody together so that it doesn't things don't just fall apart and everyone just kind of goes off and then just become some lame christian that's not really doing anything with their life but you see the importance of gathering together and saying nope we're going to remain doing this we're going to stay steadfast and we're going to do things the right way turn if you would to numbers chapter 27 um numbers 27 moses has been informed that he's he's not gonna lead the people into the promised land that he is going to his life is going to end and he will not be the one leading them over and moses had this great heart for the people and was worried about the people as he always had been and and his character has demonstrated throughout his entire life how much he actually just cared about the people which is he was the most meek man on the earth even when they hated him he still loved them even when they wanted to kill him and go back and do their own thing he still loved them he still interceded for them he still wanted what was best for the people and even now when he's finding out you know hey you're not going to be the one to lead them over you know there is this sin that that god was not happy about and he's saying because of that now you're not going to be able to lead the children of israel you're not going to get into the promised land but moses cares in verse 15 it says and moses spake unto the lord saying let the lord the god of the spirits of all flesh set a man over the congregation which may go out before them and which may go in before them and which may lead them out and which may bring them in that the congregation of the lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd and of course this phrase even appears in the in the bible multiple times sheep having no shepherd right there's there's nothing wrong now of course we have the word sheeple and it's not a good thing to be called a sheep nowadays right and in general i i get it i understand you don't want to be just some blind person like the blind following the blind right you don't want to just accept everything you hear no matter what and not be critical thinking and stuff like that of course that is not a good thing but when the bible is talking about being a sheep we ought to be sheep when it comes to the bible what comes to jesus christ when it comes to receiving the things of the word of god hey we he's the great shepherd and we are sheep and we ought to be following that shepherd and and following that leader to to guide us in the right way okay and that is what an under shepherd does that is what a bishop does in a new testament church is to try to be a leader and watch over the flock and watch over the people that is that is literally part of the job of a bishop which is why the words even used in scripture of being a bishop which is synonymous with being a pastor or being an elder it is to be able to look out for and care for the flock which is exactly what moses is doing is saying look if i'm going to be gone there needs to be someone in my place that's going to care for the people and look out for them verse number 18 and the lord said unto moses take thee joshua the son of none a man in whom is the spirit and lay thine hand upon him so joshua already has got the spirit he's already a spirit-filled man he's already someone doing great work we could see this in his life he's already taking stands he already knows he has integrity he's been ministering he's been serving he's proven himself and god now is saying you know what joshua is going to be the man and don't let the we're going to get into this more near the end of the sermon but just pay attention it says and lay thine hand upon him we'll get into a little bit the laying out of hands because that is a very important aspect of doing things biblically and doing things right which is why you shouldn't just have a bunch of rogue people going off and doing their own thing it needs to be done biblically and scripturally and you will be blessed for that and this church i believe is being blessed already for following things the way that they ought to be done decently and in order the bible says in verse number 19 and set him before elieza the priest and before all the congregation and give him a charge in their sight this is joshua's ordination and ordination is when you're being ordained or chosen or selected to do a job and in this job he's being selected to he's given a charge he's given a directive he's given come and say here here is what you are going to do verse number 20 and thou shalt put some of thine honor upon him that all the congregation of the children of israel may be obedient and this is done so that the people know hey moses has been in charge and clearly moses is putting his stamp of approval on this man on joshua's being the next leader so that he could say hey the way that you followed me now you need to follow this man the respect you had for me the honor you've given me you have to give this man that honor now he's filling this role he's filling this position he's the leader you need to treat him as such he's been chosen not just of moses but more importantly of god this is this is who god would have to lead the bible says in verse 21 and he shall stand before eliezer priest who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of urim before the lord this is all done with seeking the lord's wisdom first doing things the right way getting the priest involved right and it says at his word they shall go out and at his word they shall come in both he and all the children of israel with him even all the congregation and moses did as the lord commanded him and he took joshua and set him before eliezer the priest and before all the congregation and he laid his hands upon him again just noticed that and gave him a charge as the lord commanded by the hand of moses now flip over to deuteronomy chapter 31 we're actually going to see the charge that was given to joshua in deuteronomy chapter 31 because the numbers it just says he gave him a charge let's see specifically what that charge is deuteronomy chapter number 31 and starting in verse number seven the bible reads and moses called unto joshua and said unto him in the sight of all israel be strong and of a good courage for thou must go with this people under the land which the lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them and thou shalt cause them to inherit it and i want you to just make note of this as well that phrase be strong and of a good courage and especially brother weeb pay attention to this because this is this is part of the charge that comes up and this phrase is repeated over and over and over and over again and for someone being ordained and for someone taking on this position you know it's important that you're strong and you have a good courage because the ministry is not easy yeah there's gonna be sometimes when it's great things are you're you're sailing fine things are going really well everything's roses it's you know man everything's just going great there's no opposition but the tough times are ahead they're coming okay there's going to come the time where you need to be strong you need to be tough you need to be able to resist the opposition and be able to make the hard stands like joshua had already proven he could do when it wasn't popular to make the stand and when you do make the public stand and not just keep it to yourself right joshua didn't just be like well we could you know we could god could get us in there you know god god god could do it and just kind of keep that back to himself no he stood up and spoke up and said no look you guys got it wrong god is for us he's going to give us this land just don't rebel against him like he stood up and publicly rebuked him said this is right you need to have that in a leader when you're ordained someone you have someone in charge hey be strong and have a good courage for thou must go with this people this is moses now talking unto joshua look at verse number eight and the lord he it is that doth go before thee and this is this is why you can be strong and have a good courage because god's with you it doesn't have to be all on your own strength and especially when you're doing things right and you keep on seeking the lord you have all the more reason to be bold and to be strong and to have courage because you could know you got the confidence knowing god is with me god is with us the lord he it is that doth go before thee he will be with thee he will not fail thee neither forsake thee fear not neither be dismayed during the hard times don't fear don't be discouraged don't be dismayed don't worry about what people can do to you when they say mean things to you when they threaten you when they try to get you shut down when they try to get you kicked out they try to get me deported you know whatever don't be afraid of what man can do unto you you need to be strong and have a good courage verse number nine and moses wrote this law and delivered unto the priests the sons of levi which bear the ark of the covenant lord and unto all the elders of israel and moses commanded them saying at the end of every seven years in the solemnity of the year of release in the feast of tabernacles when all israel has come to appear before the lord thy god in the place which he shall choose thou shalt read this law before all israel in their hearing gather the people together men and women and children and thy stranger that is within thy gates that they may hear and that they may learn and fear the lord your god and observe to do all the words of this law and look at just a side note verse number 12 gather the people together men women children the stranger and what are they doing they're going through the whole law like the whole bible they're reading all of the word of god with everyone gathered together they don't have the kids over here and this other group of people over there and you know they're all together and and the sentence doesn't end in verse 12 if we keep reading verse 13 and that their children which have not known anything may hear that's why you want to have the children in the reading of the word of god in the teaching of the word of god because they might not be getting it at home they might not be i mean hey what did god every child would hear the word of god and have it expounded onto them and have them learn and talk at home that is the responsibility of the parents but you know what maybe that's not happening we better make sure it's happening with the congregation learn to fear the lord your god as long as you live in the land whether you go over jordan to possess it and the lord said unto moses behold thy days approach that thou must die call joshua and present yourselves in the tabernacle of the congregation that i may give him a charge and when i was talking about we turned here because we're gonna see the charge that god has for joshua and moses joshua went to present themselves in the tabernacle of the congregation and he talks to moses first and and discuss things with him jumped down to verse number 23 though look at the charge verse 23 and he gave joshua the son of none a charge and said said what be strong and of a good courage isn't that exactly what moses said that's identical like word for word that's what moses said be strong and of a good courage so there's something that moses definitely learned from the lord and was able to pass that down to joshua his best advice his charge to joshua is exact same charge that the lord has for joshua be strong and of a good courage for thou shalt bring the children of israel into the land which i swear to them and i will be with thee so moses told joshua first and now god's telling joshua hey be strong have a good courage and i'm going to be with you no reason to doubt right jump down to verse number uh excuse me flip over real quick a few pages to do draw me 34 one more point as we're building up kind of near to the end where i'm going to just just hopefully just just make everything as clear as possible look at verse number nine in chapter 34 and joshua the son of none was full of the spirit of wisdom for moses had laid his hands upon him and the children of israel hearkened unto him and did as the lord commanded moses and that phrase for moses had laid his hands upon him is a very important phrase it's in there for a reason it's not just that joshua was full of the spirit of wisdom joshua's full of spirit wisdom for moses had laid his hands upon him so keep that in mind the laying out of hands and i'll like i said i'll go a little bit deeper when we wrap things up but that is that is important it's part of the ordination process part of having someone leading the church it is important uh try to go to joshua chapter number one and and deuteronomy records that verse we were just in that the children of israel did listen to them they hearkened unto him they did respect joshua they did listen to him as they listened to moses but we're going to see even the people themselves confirm that their heart is with him in joshua chapter one when joshua commanded the officers of the people look at verse number 16 of joshua chapter one the Bible reads and they answered joshua saying all that thou commandest us to we will do and whithersoever thou sendest us we will go according as we hearken unto moses and all things so will we hearken unto thee only the lord by god be with thee as he was with moses and you know this is how church members how we as church members ought to be following our leaders right just like the boss said hey follow me even as i follow christ and and i get sick of hearing people say oh i'm not going to go to church what do you think i have to listen to some man tell me what's it about yeah you do yes because that's the way that god designed it because god had people ordained to be in charge and to run things and to teach and to lead and that yeah you ought to be listening to those people you ought to be hearing them and just like they said here hey look we listen to moses and just as we listen to moses we're gonna listen to you and he's probably thinking like oh great the same way you listen to moses because they didn't always listen to moses very well right they're like oh man but they did ultimately they did right moses got them and again sign of a good leader right with with probably some of the worst group of people he still kept them from being destroyed he kept them from being annihilated and and and going back to egypt he did keep them going in the right direction and it took everything for moses to do that it drained him but he was able to do that and now we see joshua stepping up and because he served because he was faithful because he had the spirit because he met these qualifications he was ordained he was chosen he had hands laid on him and now the people are going you know what according as we harken unto moses and all things so will we harken unto thee but then they said only the lord thy god be with thee as he was with moses so we need to follow the man of god as long as he's following god as long as he's doing what's right as long as god is with them right i mean we want to listen to him now if some pastor goes off and gets into sin and gets into you know all kinds of wickedness and perversion and just starts going their own way and and not doing what's right and they're not right with god at that point then you say okay well i'm not gonna i'm not gonna follow you you start going down a different path and you were not required we're not obligated to follow that person but you know we need to find someone we can follow find find somewhere we can go we could follow people and follow a man of god follow someone who has been commissioned to do the job commissioned to lead and has the spirit of god on them look at verse 18 again this is the people these are the people answering the officers answering whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy commandment and will not harken unto thy words and all that thou commandest him he shall be put to death now i'm not saying that you adopt this rule here but we can see where their heart was right they're saying look we're you know this is so serious we're going to follow you and we're not going to tolerate rebellion but then look at the look at that last phrase though only what be strong and of a good courage so you've got moses instructing to be strong and of a good courage you've got god instructing be strong and of a good courage and you know what you got the people instructing hey be strong and of a good courage everyone wants that leader to be strong the people god the ordaining authority and everyone's that people that wants that person the leader to have good courage it's important it's critical you've got to maintain that and people encourage your leader encourage your pastor to maintain and be strong because when you're under attack and under attack and under attack it's not always easy to be strong that's why we're being commanded to be strong right and and you know what can help when people encourage when people edify when people communicate and say hey i love you pastor you're doing a great job keep it up keep it just something so small is enough to encourage and to strengthen and to edify edify means you're building up you're strengthening right if you want your leader if you want your pastor to be strong and of a good courage edify him strengthen him jump up to verse number five here we'll see the charge of lord again it's in joshua chapter one verse number five there shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life as i was with moses so i will be with thee i will not fail thee nor forsake thee this is the message from god to joshua excuse me be strong and of a good courage again boy how many times we're going to read that phrase these are all different verses be strong and of a good courage for under this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land which i swear unto their fathers to give them verse seven only be thou strong and very courageous now if you don't leave with anything else tonight please leave with being strong and courageous it's something that i don't know but but here's the thing when it comes to the bible it comes the word of god and you see things repeated over and over again you know what that means it's important and the more we see stuff repeated the more times god's going to use the limited space in his word to to give you a message pay extra attention the more times you see that because it's that important verse seven will keep reading only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law you have to be strong and courageous to do according to all of the law because there's always going to be times when some of the law is not popular there's always times when obeying all of god's commands that's not going to go well so you need to be strong and courageous to say no no no we believe in all of the law it's all the word of god i believe in the whole bible old testament and new test we believe it all it's the word of god and yeah some things are popular some things are in season and some things are definitely out of season and you know what that all changes with the times and there's never been a time where everything has been perfect in history there's always been things that have been despised in god's law it's just different things at different times i mean even you know going back to the 50s it's not some some heyday where everything was right with with the world in america or something or you know like with just culture in general like people always want to talk about that hey yeah it may have been better with in in some areas but it wasn't best in all areas bottom line is you need to be strong and courageous observe to do according to all the law which moses my servant commanded he turned not from it to the right hand or to left don't don't don't don't start shifting over to the side that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest so this is this is continuing the the charge right that's given to joshua that he needs to be strong and courageous keep the law the law of god don't turn away from it don't turn to the left hand don't turn to the right hand why so that you can prosper you want to prosper as a church don't deviate from the word of god verse eight this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein the only way you're going to ensure and make sure that you can do what's written in the word of god and that you can keep the law of the lord is if you know it you have to know it and knowing it isn't well i read the bible once yeah i read i even read it covered covered how well can you really know the bible not that well at all which is why he's being instructed look you can't let this go out of like like cease from coming out of your mouth like you've got to be you've got to have it in your mind and in your heart so that you're talking about it you're thinking about it you're meditating about it day and night and just and pondering and questioning and thinking going oh man i read this and this what does this mean how does this apply what is right god lead me in the truth but that you can be thinking about it regularly day and night that's that's at least twice a day you want to be a good leader that that is a requirement right there and then or at least you want this look at for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good success you want to be successful you have a successful leader in this church you have successful church in general we need to have leaders that are going to be receiving the charge and taking the charge like joshua was receiving the charge from the lord and look at verse number nine have not i commanded thee what's that next phrase be strong and of a good courage be not afraid neither be thou dismayed for the lord thy god is with thee whithersoever thou goest it's encouraging be strong be courageous turn last place i'm gonna be turned first timothy chapter four it's a lot that we can learn from and there's a lot more we can learn from the life of joshua but it just to me it just it's just so interesting how how the leadership of joshua how he rose and and ended up in this position of being ordained to be leading the the children of god the children of israel into the promised land and kind of taking on the torch and going into that next phase of their existence and look it was um moses was a great man of god but when moses is gone guess what joshua was a great man of god they both had their battles they both followed the lord and great things happened as a result from both of them serving and you're going to have different leaders and they're going to have different styles or they might do some different things but as a follower we need to have our hearts right no matter who that ordained leadership is as long as hey if they're following the lord that's that's it that's all you need let's not be the carnal christians like the church at corinth that wanted to start these little factions of oh i'm of paul and i'm of apollos and i'm of cephas and i'm of you know and kind of being divided because they had their favorite preacher and they had to go ah man well i don't like this guy very much i like this guy but you're like so what you're in a church you're in a local church here get behind your guy that's what you need to do and i'm not saying you can't learn from other people amen learn from people that are teaching the word of god great you know what get behind ordained leadership in your local church first timothy chapter four verse number 11 this is the chart of timothy again this is new testament to a preacher to a pastor uh from the apostle paul to timothy verse number 11 these things command and teach let no man despise thy youth but be thou an example of the believers in word in conversation in charity in spirit in faith in purity it's a lot of responsibility the leadership hey you need to be an example in all these areas you need to you need to make sure that you've got it stepped up and you are leading by example and showing hey this is how we do things till i come give attendance to reading make sure you're reading the bible to exhortation to doctrine you need to be teaching you need to be reading the bible so you know just like joshua had to hey you'd be meditating there in day and night exhorting because the people need exhortation people need to be encouraged people need to be uh lifted up and to doctrine and that's going to come from all your reading making sure you've got things right according to the bible because we care about god's word you know we care about god's word more than what anyone will say and as this church becomes independent too hey you know the responsibility of the church is going to be to christ in christ alone and that's that goes for all independent churches that want to follow christ the the bible has to be followed as they see it as it's as it's shown to them and revealed unto them no matter who agrees with it or disagrees with it right and the church is going to have to decide you know obviously um you already know what everyone believes on all the fundamentals we're not talking about making a big stink over some smaller point or some other uh not quite uh not quite as important doctrine but at the end of the day though the man of god is is responsible and answerable to the lord and has to be courageous and has to be able to stand strong to preach as they see it because if you're not anything that you don't do of faith is sin who the bible teaches if you believe a certain way and you're you know like but you teach different just because you don't want to be called out or you know like that's not right you can't do that you have to stay true and faithful to the lord and to his word look at verse 14 this is why i was really wanted to to to look at here with all of the other references we saw the laying on of hands look at verse number 14 neglect not the gift that is in me which was given me by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery there is a gift that's given through the laying on of hands and i can't fully explain it to you it's hard to articulate how it works it's a spiritual thing but what i can do is i could share my own testimony with you that while i was in training while i was being taught while i was serving while i was ministering at faith lord baptist church years and years ago and preaching and preaching at nursing homes and doing different things and doing different things and doing different things and leading soul winning times and doing all these different things and stepping in filling the pulpit i was not ready nor authorized to pastor a church until i had the laying on of hands and i'll tell you what like i said it's hard to describe or hard to explain but i was not ready prior to the ordination to be ready to be able to preach three sermons a week and run everything within a church i was not ready to do that but god gave me what i needed to do after that ordination with the laying on of hands that came and like i said it's hard to explain it's hard to express but i have to give god the glory for for helping me to be able to do the job that i was commissioned to do but if you're going to do things right if you're going to follow the word of by word of god you have to do it and we see the way things are done we see that that even to in the epistle to titus right therefore left id and crete because why there were some things that were lacking and then he ordained elders in every church the church without an elder it doesn't mean it's not a church it's a church people are gathering together you know you're meeting together but there's still something lacking they need they needed leadership but and but they needed the right leadership and they needed the leadership to be ordained they needed to have someone to lay hands on them and ordain them to be able to receive that extra gift and the extra spirit that god is going to have to give you to get the job done because it's a hard job because it's not easy because you need god's help to to lead a church to lead a spiritual battle to lead a spiritual mission of preaching preaching the gospel to people this isn't just a job oh what do you do for work i pass our church like yeah it's work but it's not like a secular job because if you treat it as a secular job and you don't have the spirit with you then that's all it's going to be and there's plenty of those bozos out there to any of them given they're given church a bad name they're getting people to to be to despise church in general i deal i'm dealing this already with family members that just despise churches in general because they see the phoniness to see the hypocrisy they see people that don't really care about they see people who are just getting a paycheck it's a cush job whatever that's not how god wants things run and if you're going to continue to have faithfulness and integrity towards the word of god then you need to be meditating on these things like you said in verse 15 here in verse 74 meditate upon these things give thyself wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to 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 he's not talking about saving himself like his soul going to hell he's already been saved okay there's a lot that we could be saved from though saved from hardship saved from from pitfalls and and all kinds of all kinds of things we have a good doctrine god will direct you away from those things so um but hey when you when you are sincerely looking to the word of god seeking god's approval trying to do everything you can to do it right according to scripture god will guide you god will be with you you got a great thing going here and i hope and i pray that god will bless this church and this group of people and and that so many more good things will come out of this church and and i'm excited i hope i get an opportunity to come back again in the future and just see how things are going here because it really does you know that i i can just feel the spirit here even though like i said i don't i don't really know you all that well and i appreciate the opportunity to be here but this is man i am excited and if you are someone that lives anywhere close to you because i don't know who's here and who's not try to help this church out and come as often as you can and and and promote the zeal get behind brother weeb who's going to be taking over the reigns as he's ordained this weekend and and and serve serve him like you'd serve the lord spotlights ever word of prayer your heavenly father thank you so much for this church we thank you for bringing the all these people together that love you and want to serve you and i pray that you please bless this church i pray that you would please help brother weeb to be strong and courageous and i pray that you please help this church to be strong and courageous lord and that you would bless them and and help them and and guide and teach them dear lord and just and guide and teach them dear lord and just help them to reach this whole area with the gospel of jesus christ i pray that you would please uh keep them all safe from evil and that you would um just pour out your blessing upon them here for their faithfulness to your word we love you in jesus name we pray amen