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Let's take our Bibles now. Let's take our Bibles and go to 1 Timothy chapter 3. 1 Timothy chapter 3. And I'm really concluding our study here through 1 Timothy chapter 3. We spent many weeks going through the qualifications of a bishop, qualifications of the deacons and what's expected of the deacons. We've gone through the wives of the deacons and the bishops. And prior to that we've gone through church planting and ordination, these kinds of things. But we do have a few verses here left in chapter 3 that I want to cover today. And look at verse number 14, 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 14. Now just remember that this letter, this epistle was written by Paul the Apostle to Timothy. Okay, which was a young man who was a young pastor, a young bishop and is instructing Timothy how he ought to behave, how he ought to carry himself in the house of God. Look at 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 14. These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. I just want to bring us back to verse number 15 there. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God. You see, the purpose of this epistle was so Timothy as a young man, as a young pastor would know how to behave in the church, how to behave in the house of God. And you see, as someone that strives to be a leader, you know, whether you become a bishop or a deacon, or you don't take on those offices, you just become a great leader in the church, you become a great man, a great right-hand man to the pastor in the church, you need to remind yourself that there is an expectation to behave in a proper way. You know, God wants us to behave a certain way in the house of the Lord. Pastors, this is written to a pastor, okay? That we can take these lessons, we can apply it to everybody in the church, but here Paul is just reminding the pastor of the church, you've got to behave yourself. There's a certain expectation how to carry about yourself. You know, you can't just be an idiot. You can't just be a loud-mouthed moron. You know, you can't just be someone that brings the church in disrepute. You need to be someone of character. And as we've been going through these qualifications of a bishop, a lot of them had to do with what? How much doctrine they know? How smart they are with the Bibles? No, a lot of these qualifications came down to their character, okay? Their character, how they behave themselves. You know, the maturity in which they've been able to grow. You know, walking after the Spirit, walking after the Lord. You see the maturity in the Lord. You see them grow and maturing. That's what's important for a pastor to behave himself properly. And notice the first thing I want you to notice here in verse 15, or the end of verse 15. It's called here the church of the living God. We serve a God that's alive. When we gather together here in the church, He's alive. He's living. The Holy Spirit is here working in our hearts. Jesus Christ himself is in the midst of us. We serve a living God. When we sing these songs, we sing these songs of praises. Remind ourselves we're serving a God who loves to hear our worship. Who wants to hear our voices being lifted up serving Him. But then it calls here at the church, the pillar and ground of the truth. I love those words. You know the church, the pillar and ground of the truth. You know what New Life Baptist Church has to be? It has to be a pillar and ground of the truth. Not a pillar and ground of falsehoods, of fables, of Jewish fables, of Pastor Kevin's wisdom. No, no, no. It's the pillar and ground of the truth of God's Word. You know the church ought to be the institution above every other institution on this world that brings the truth where you can come in here and be instructed in the truth of God's Word. Of course, Jesus Christ is our foundation, the foundation of the church. Not only is He the foundation, but He's the head of the church. And the church ought to be the body of Christ. And what does Christ say about himself? That He is the truth. He is the way, the truth and the life. And we need to make sure that we preach from the scriptures. What is the scriptures? It is the word of truth. You know the institution of the church ought to be a place you come to hear the truth no matter what season it is. No matter what people, no matter how this world is deteriorating, no matter how much pressure is being put on preachers to compromise on the Word of God. No, no. God's church ought to be a pillar and ground of truth. It's where we come to hear the truth. And when you think about the word pillar, what is a pillar? And quite often we think about a pillar as a vertical structure used to support a building. And that's true. A pillar ought to be made of strength. Its substance ought to be something strong, like a strong stone or something metal. Something that can support a structure. That's what a church needs to be. A church needs to be strong. It needs to have the strength of God. This is why a church needs to be built by Jesus Christ. Not built by me or built by you, because we're going to fail. We're weak. We have the flesh. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. What I love about the fact that we're about to celebrate two years as a church, it means we've had a strong pillar in this church. It's been strong for at least two years. And I want it to be strong enough for 10 years, for 20 years, for 30 years. I want it to be strong enough to continue for the next generations. I want it to be strong enough to continue till Jesus Christ comes back. The truth is, we look at those seven churches in the book of Revelation, those churches that we read about, they were true historical churches, but they don't exist anymore. Now, many of them did great works. A lot of good things came out of those churches, but as the generations went by, eventually they collapsed. And that's what we see. Every generation just seems like we see good churches. I've seen good churches. Only to find out, you go back several years later, a decade later, there's a new pastor, there's a new generation, and it's just deteriorated. It's a dead church. It's something along these lines. We can't allow this for new life at this church. I've invested too much of my time. I've invested two years of my life for this church. You know, you've invested your time to come here to the services, to the men's leadership class. We want to make sure this church remains a pillar. And it's only going to remain a pillar if we keep preaching the truth. When we start to compromise, that pillar starts to crack. And it'll collapse, and that whole building will collapse. But not only is a pillar a structure that supports a building, but a pillar is also used many times in the Bible as a monument. You remember that? Sometimes they raise up a pillar just for remembrance. To go back and remember, yes, you know, I've raised that pillar. We've had some spiritual victory. We've had some success. And therefore, we raise up this pillar so it's always this monument we can look back on and remember the great success that God has led us through. And this is why we celebrate things like anniversaries, the two-year anniversary coming up, because we want to remember. We want to remember the last two years. We want to remember the works that we've done as a church. We want to remember, hey, where were we before the church? Where are we now? Are we growing the Lord? I hope we are. I hope you've not gone backsliding, you know, from the time we started the church. But we need to just, you know, celebrate sometimes. You know, we're not going to put a pillar up though. But you know, just to stop and remember, hey, that's what a pillar is. Just to remember how God has come through, how God has answered prayers, how God has led us over the years. And that's another important aspect of the church. Sometimes it's just remembrance, okay? Coming to church, hearing a sermon, you may not always learn something new, but it always brings something to your remembrance, something you may have known in the past and may have just forgotten, and you need to your mind refresh. And that's what a pillar ought to be. A vertical structure supporting a building, but it can also be used as a monument. Now, notice verse number 16. As we've gone through this, it just kind of seems like verse 16 comes out of nowhere. Because now it goes, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness, okay? And it breaks down what the mystery of godliness is. And as I was just sort of meditating upon this, it kind of just seems like it's just inserted, like, doesn't have anything to do with the surrounding text. But then again, I was just bringing back, why does Paul write this here? Again, he's just finished saying that the church of the living God is the pillar and ground of the truth. And then he speaks about this mystery of godliness. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. And then I'm just, oh yeah, of course, it makes sense. Because there's a lot of things in the Bible that are great mysteries, okay? You've got to dig in deep, you've got to study, you've got to expand the scriptures, you know? And church ought to be a place where people come and they learn the Bible, right? There are great mysteries in the Bible, things you've got to dig in deep. And it's wonderful when you've got a preacher that stands behind the pulpit, you know they've done this study, and now they can expand some of these great mysteries. You know, they can plug a hole maybe in your knowledge that you didn't have. Maybe you are establishing a doctrine, but you've heard arguments, you're not sure about how to answer some of those arguments, but then the preacher gets behind the pulpit, preaches about that, answers those arguments, and he just plugs in those holes sometimes. Just reinforces, you know, some of those key doctrines that you stand on. And so we see some of the mystery of godliness. And as I was going through this, I'm just thinking, man, I want to go through a series now, a series called The Mystery of Godliness. Let's have a look at what it is. There's quite a few things here. And by the way, all of these things have to do with Jesus Christ. Of course, a church, the focus of the church, the one we look up to, the standard, needs to be Jesus Christ, not pastor Kevin Zappolo. The standard has to be Jesus Christ. Look at it, number one, God was manifest in the flesh. That is a great mystery to think the God of the universe, you know, came in a fleshly body. Of course, that's referenced in Jesus Christ. That's the first mystery of godliness. The next one is justified in the spirit. And what could that be about? And I think about, you know, obviously, the spirit there, the Holy Spirit, how the Holy Spirit bears record to us, you know, of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit teaches us of Jesus Christ. He justifies if you want, you know, the word of God, you know, incarnate Jesus Christ, or the word of God in the scriptures. It's the Holy Spirit that justifies these truths to us. We can also maybe apply it to Jesus, as Jesus Christ was walking this earth 2,000 years ago, he was performing great works and great miracles. The Bible tells us that he did the works for the power of the Spirit of God. And of course, by his works, by his miracles, you know, he justified his position as a son of God, as the Messiah, as the lamb that came to take away the sins of the world. And then next one, it says here, our scene of angels, the scene of angels. And I think about the relationship there between Christ and the, you know, the heavenly host. You know, Jesus Christ is not just an angel. He is not just an elevated angel. He's not Michael the Archangel. No, the angels worship Jesus Christ because he is God manifest in the flesh, of course. And the next one there is preached unto the Gentiles. And immediately when I think of this, I think of replacement theology. Preached unto the Gentiles, you know, it's not just the Jews. The Jews came, they had the chance, many of them believed, praise God, but many of them rejected Christ. And so the apostles, the disciples went and went preaching the gospel unto the Gentiles. The Gentiles are now being grafted in into the same family of faith. And so we see that work now being, you know, the work of the gospel going out to the Gentiles. And again, I'm thinking about the differences there between the old covenant and the new covenant. I've preached on some of that before. And the last one there is, oh sorry, the second last one is they believed on in the world. Believed on in where, Australia? No, in the world, okay. And this is part of the reason we have Brother Richard Symes here, is so he can tell us a little bit about other places in the world. That's exciting to hear about the great success that, you know, some of these other countries are having with the gospel being preached. You know, now this is our world. This is the place we need to, you know, work hard and preach. But we ought to rejoice. We ought to be thankful for those that are willing to give up their comfortable lives in Western countries, going to some tough places, you know, to sacrifice themselves for the gospel of God. And you see, many here have believed on in the world. We need to be a church that has a mindset. Yes, not just locally, but also what's going on in the other places in the world. Where are our brethren? You know, do they have needs? Can we help them? You know, as Australians, we live in a rich country. You know, I'm sure we can all admit we probably have more than we need, okay. Are we willing to sacrifice some of that as a church to the missionaries that are going out in these foreign fields that really need a lot of help, you know. Believed on in the world. And then it says here, received up into glory. And when I think about that, of course, we think of the ascension of Christ. Not just the ascension, but the resurrection. You know, he came and he was resurrected in his glorified body. He ascended to be with the Lord God. But not only was he received up into glory, we know that because he went into glory, he's going to return in glory. As well, he's going to return in glory, the second coming in glory. So, this is the mystery of godliness. It's all about Jesus Christ. And now I really have a desire now to break these down into individual sermons. One day, we'll get to that series. But I'm just thinking, hey, a church needs to be preaching on these things. On Christ, on these fundamental things. The mysteries of the Bible, opening them up so the hearers can learn truths. And I hope, I know a lot of you guys have been spoiled a little bit. You know, listening to a lot of good preaching online. I hope that as your pastor, as your preacher, that I can bring some other truths to you. I hope, you know, that I can pull out things in the Bible that you've not seen before. Or, you know, come from a different perspective. The Bible is very deep. You know, we have a lot of verses that you can apply in many different ways. My desire is to open up certain mysteries for you. You know, to unravel certain things. To connect passages in the Bible. And that's what a pastor should be striving to do. Taking this book, this mystery book, this mysterious book. I can't teach it by myself. I need the Holy Spirit. I need the Lord God to help me and guide me and to show me passages. Bring things to my remembrance. Things that relate, things that connect to help, you know, edify the brethren. So, you know, the first thing that I want to talk about. We're talking about here the behavior in the house of God. How pastors ought to behave in the house of God. And the first thing that's just brought to my attention here is that my behavior should be to open up the Bible. So people can understand it even more so. Okay. And then as I was looking at this entire epistle, 1 Timothy, I did come up with eight areas of behavior that pastors should strive for. Okay. Eight areas of behavior that pastors should strive for. Look at 1 Timothy 4, please. 1 Timothy 4 verse 12. I think all the references I have are in 1 Timothy. And, you know, Lord willing, in 2022, you know, I want to have this men's leadership class every three years. Lord willing, my goal for 2022, if you guys are still around, is that these eight areas of behavior for pastors that I would preach like entire sermons on, you know, like on each behavior, it'd be a full sermon. Okay. So we would really break down the responsibility of a pastor in a church. So we'll just go through these eight things here and I'll summarize it as best as I can. But 1 Timothy 4 verse 12. The Bible says, Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example to the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith. In purity. You see, pastors are called, or bishops are called, to be an example to believers. Man, you know, when I think about that, I shudder sometimes. You know, am I setting a good example? You know, I hope I am. I believe I am setting a good example, but am I setting the best example that I can set? Probably not. I can probably work toward these things. And, of course, Paul has instructed Timothy here to be a great example to the believers. Because one thing you need to understand, when you take on an office, especially an office, as a pastor or a deacon, is that people are watching you. You're now an example, okay? And if you mess up, you can mess up the faith of others. And if you don't care about the church, you don't care about the scriptures, you know, all you care about is the world, you're going to influence the believers in your church. This is why it frustrates me when I see, and I've got pastor friends on Facebook, and they promote worldly things, promote worldly movies, promote worldly music or something. You know? Why? You're an example to the believers. You know, I've said it before, go watch a stupid movie, but shut up about it. Don't go around influencing everybody. Just watch it and hide it, okay? Confess it to God. If it's worldly, if it's junk. But stop, you know, you're an example. And, you know, it's sort of, it's humbling. It's humbling when I think about the responsibility that a pastor has. And if you set a bad example, you can destroy believers. I've seen that. I've seen churches fall apart, seen believers be discouraged because they just had bad examples as leaders or pastors, you know? And again, we've got to be careful because we need to understand that even pastors are men, you know, can fail. Pastors can be weak, and of course we need to make sure we set our sights on Jesus Christ as our standard. Look at verse number 13, please. The next verse. 1 Timothy 4 verse 13. So what are the eight areas here of behavior, of good behavior that pastors ought to have? The first one that I have is a behavior of study. A behavior of study. 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 13. Till I come, give attendance to reading. Okay? So attend to these things, Timothy. You've got to spend time reading, of course, the scriptures, right? To exhortation, to doctrine. All right? So he's telling Timothy, you need to spend time studying. You need to spend time reading. You need to spend time exhorting the brethren, encourage them, lifting them up. You need to spend time in doctrine. Doctrine! All right? And look, I know how to grow this church really quickly. You know what I need to do? Get rid of the doctrine. If we want to grow this church really quickly, we'd have to just get rid of the doctrine. Just be very shallow in our teaching. God loves you. Jesus loves you. You're fine. You'll be fine. Now, if we did that, though, we would open the floodgates, wouldn't we? We would grow this church really quickly. No, no, no. We need to make sure we spend studying doctrine even after you're a pastor. You need to keep studying. You can't just say, well, I made it, now I'm a pastor, and I'm good to go. No, you've got to keep studying. The more I study, the more I realize I don't know things, right? The more questions that come up, and it's a good thing because I'm asking the questions I'm studying, and so when somebody else comes and asks me a question, I'm a little bit more prepared to give a strong biblical answer. Look at verse number 14. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on the hands of the presbytery. And this gift, I've already covered this before, but I do believe it's a gift of wisdom, a gift that comes through the Holy Spirit, okay? So if you've been ordained, you've had hands laid upon you, you've been sent out by the presbytery, you've been given a gift, and Paul is saying, look, Timothy, don't neglect the gift. You know what that tells me? You can neglect the gift. You know, if you don't spend time studying, you don't spend time learning God's Word, you can get to a point where you neglect the gift and you're no longer growing in wisdom. And when you're no longer growing in wisdom, you can't profit others. Look at verse number 15. Meditate upon these things. You know, as I study, it's not just getting my chapter done, getting my sermon done. I've got to meditate on these things. You know, you're striving to be a stop and think about it. How can I apply this to my life? How can I teach this to be applied to the people in the church? Give thyself wholly to them. That thy profiting may appear to all. Okay? So you ought to see Pastor Kevin Sepulveda growing in wisdom. You ought to see that, hey, he's profiting from this position as a pastor. He's getting better at preaching. He's getting better at teaching. Hey, he's teaching deeper things. He's opening the Word of God. He's bringing new things to the table. You know, we shouldn't, and I see this a lot with pastors. They've got their 100 sermons, right? They get through the 100 sermons, they start again. The next one, again. It's like, man, you've been here year after year. I've heard this before. I've heard it before, pastor. Can we get to something else? You know, they've got their 100 sermons and that's it. No, pastors ought to be starting, striving, learning that they're profiting from the study and that others can see that and not to neglect the gift that is in thee. The first area of behavior is study. Study, okay? That means you're going to need to spend time, quiet time with God, sitting down, opening the Bible, writing out notes. You need to spend that time, okay? It's not wasted time, okay? It's not wasted time. You know, you need to make sure you spend time. That's a behavior that pastors need to have. The second one is, and this goes hand in hand with study, of course, is to teach. Look at 1 Timothy 1, verse 3. 1 Timothy 1, verse 3. A behavior of teaching. 1 Timothy 1, verse 3. 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. So what should pastors teach? Well, we saw the end of this, where it says these people that are teaching fables, endless genealogies, that are teaching false doctrines, these things that minister questions, they bring questions up, rather than, so what should we be teaching, rather than godly edifying which is in faith. That's what preaching needs to be. That's what teaching needs to be. Godly edifying which is in faith. Okay? Write that down if you haven't. Godly edifying which is in faith, that's what your teaching needs to be. And if you haven't got that, your teaching is going to become the endless genealogies, the fables, the nonsense. Nonsense. Nonsense. But notice that Timothy has been warned that there are people that are going to come into the church to teach these things. So he's commanded to make sure he teaches against those things. Okay? Pastors need to make sure that they do not allow false teaching in their church. Now, I'm not saying that we get a visitor, we get someone that's not, you know, not as mature, a carnal Christian, a new baby in Christ that doesn't know much about the Bible, or they've been misled by the preachers, they get in here, they've got questions, they've got other positions, they're not clear about what they believe. I'm not saying shut them down. I'm saying people that are trying to get up and become teachers. People that are trying to teach heresies. That's what you're going to teach against. I'm not talking about just the average person that doesn't know much. Okay? We'll see later on that you need to spend time teaching these people as well. Go to 1 Timothy 4 verse 6. 1 Timothy 4 verse 6. 1 Timothy 4 verse 6. Again, to Timothy as a pastor, if thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, keep that in mind, please. If you ever hear me preach something and you're like, I don't really know this, but look, we're commanded to bring in remembrance these things, okay? I know a lot of what I preach you already know. I know that, okay? But I'm still commanded to bring them to your remembrance. So it's always there at the front of your mind. Thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. I love that good doctrine, not just doctrine, but good doctrine, okay? Verse 7. But refuse profane and old wives fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. But bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. So you see what needs to be taught. Godliness, okay? Striving to be more godly in our lives. You know, getting rid of the sin, getting rid of the wilderness, getting rid of the carnal things, you know, striving to walk in the ways of God, striving to keep His commandments, striving to love the Lord. This is what needs to be taught behind the pulpit. I want you guys to grow to be more godly, grow to be more like Jesus Christ. That's the behavior, the teaching that needs to come from pastors. Verse number 9. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, for therefore we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God who is the savior of all men, especially of those that believe. Verse number 11. These things command and teach. These things command and teach. What was it? Verse number 10. That we labor and suffer reproach. I need to command, I need to teach you guys that we need to do the works of God. We need to labor for the Lord. But not just labor, we're going to suffer reproach. We're going to be laughed at, we're going to be scorned at. We may very well be persecuted one day. Now we're very free in Australia. It's unlikely you're going to get persecuted here, but it could come our way. It could come our way. So as a pastor, we need to make sure we teach the church to prepare for tribulation, to prepare for hardships so when they come, they can be able to endure the suffering. And then it says, because we trust in the living God. That's another thing I need to teach you guys. To trust in the living God. The living God. He's alive. He's here today to trust in Him. He's the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe. So I'm going to preach, not Calvinism, but the Savior of all men. I can't preach that. I've got to make sure, especially to those that believe so these things command and teach. Please go to chapter 6 now. 1 Timothy 6 verse 17. 1 Timothy 6 verse 17. And this is so important because even in Christian families, children are brought up to basically try to be as profitable as they can in this world. Land a good job. Make a lot of money. That's what a lot of parents want for their children, right? To be rich and all these things. And look at 1 Timothy 6 verse 17. There's nothing wrong with being rich if God has given you those riches. But look at verse 17. Listen, you're rich, alright? I know you haven't got a mansion, alright? You may not even own a house. But if you live in Australia, I'm telling you now, you are rich compared to the rest of this world. Isn't that right, brother? Compared to the Philippines, Uganda. Man, we're compared to ourselves to those people. We are rich, you know? And we could fall into the habit of trusting in our riches, right? And so as pastors, we're commanded to teach our people not to trust in uncertain riches, to trust in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. So to remember, hey, the riches, the privileges that we have in Australia have come from the Lord God. It's not come from you. It's not about you being high-minded and proud. Look what I've been able to achieve. No. Thank God that you have the riches. Thank God you live in this country that makes you so, you know, comfortable, all right? But at the same time, remember who gave them to us. He was the Lord God. Look at verse number 18. That they do good. That they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate. You know what we're required to do with our riches and our finances? Distribute them, you know? Especially to those that are laboring in the work of God. We need to consider, you know, are we helping, you know, the laborers? Now I know even though, you know, we're rich, it's also expensive, right? To have a church building lease. It's expensive to publish tracts and get all the material that we need. Of course, we need to make sure we sustain this church as well. But once we're able to do that, we need to say, hey, how else can we distribute to the work of God? We need to be aiming for this as a church. You know, from the very beginning that I started New Life Baptist Church, or the church in Calamity, as we were called at the beginning, I always wanted to get to a point where we were supporting a ministry, like a missionary, you know, overseas and things like that. And I want us to really as a church to think about these things, especially this is a men's leadership class. You know, should we be people that stop and consider, you know, those that are serving the Lord God with their substance, with their lives, with their time? You know, can we be a help to them? Can we distribute of our wealth? And we are wealthy as Australians. Look at verse number, sorry, what was I up to? Verse number 19. Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation, against the time to come. Hey, God says, look, if we can distribute, if we can do good works with our riches, that we would lay up a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. Hey, what's the good foundation that God wants us to build? A big house with the riches that we have? No, he wants us to take our riches to the work of God, right? To the ministry of God, and that's how we build a strong foundation. That's where we build our riches in eternal life. Laying hold of eternal life. The eternal riches. Laying up truths in heaven. And so, you know, I don't want to get off track here, but as pastors, that's our job. That's our job. You know, as leaders, to teach the church to put their finances into the work of God. You know, think of eternal matters. Think about eternal life rather than just the temporal life. Please go back to chapter 4 now. 1 Timothy 4 verse 1. 1 Timothy 4 verse 1. Again, this kind of goes hand in hand, but pastors, to be other behaviors of a pastor, or a bishop, or a deacon, is to be vigilant or watchful. Vigilant or watchful, okay? Look at verse number 1. Now the spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. So here we're going to see some examples here of seducing spirits, doctrines of devils, seeking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving, of them which believe and know the truth, for every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving. I'll keep reading in a moment, but you see here a list of doctrines of devils. People that are preventing men and women to get married. You know, that's a doctrine of the devil. You know, instructing people to abstain from meats. You know, saying that it's God's will for you to be a vegetarian or a vegan, or you get some spiritual brownie points by the way you eat, you know, what you eat in life. You know? We need to make sure that we're watchful about these doctrines. They can creep into our church. It is the latter times. It is the latter times. This is why we need New Life Baptist Church. We need other churches like this church, because we need to combat these hypocrisies. We need to combat these false doctrines that are getting out there in our world. Right? The seducing spirits. We need to make sure we're watchful, we're vigilant, we don't allow this church to be hurt by these false doctrines, and that we can be a shining light to other believers. Okay? I want to start other churches in Australia. I did not want to start other churches when I started New Life Baptist Church. Honestly, I wanted to get up here, do the work here. I just thought, just put your head down, work hard, focus on the local church. I'm saddened when I think about churches that were once preaching the gospel. Saddened by churches, independent fundamental Baptist churches, that once had great preachers, great pastors, and I'm seeing them compromise. I'm seeing them become more like Hillsong. I'm seeing them, you know, get rid of the soul-winning, replacing it with other things. And I want our church to be a shining light. I don't want us to be a church of hypocrisy. I don't want us to be a church that is giving, you know, heed to seducing spirits. And that's what it is, the Hillsong attitude, the Hillsong spirit is a seducing spirit. And it's being listened to by independent fundamental Baptist pastors in Australia. And they're trying to follow suit because they think, well, it will work. They will grow their church after those seducing spirits. Verse number five. Verse number five. First Timothy four, verse five. For it is sanctified by the word of God in prayer. If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things. I've already read this part, sorry there. So I just wanted to say that as pastors, their behaviors, okay, as a leader is to be vigilant or watchful. Now, please go to First Timothy chapter one. First Timothy chapter one, verse 18. First Timothy chapter one, verse 18. The fourth behavior that pastors need to have is a behavior of fighting, okay? A fighting pastor. Now, let's be careful about this because one of the qualifications was not to be a brawler, all right? We need to be careful about what we're fighting. Let's have a look at this in First Timothy chapter one, verse 18. Paul says to Timothy, this charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare. That by them mightest war a good warfare. By what? By them it said. What was it? The prophecies which went before on thee, okay? The scriptures. The scriptures are the prophecies of God. You know, it's proclaiming God's word. We need to make sure when we fight, we use God's word. It is the sword of the spirits, okay? We go out there not to just be troublemakers, but our purpose, our fight is to preach the gospel. It's to preach the scriptures. We need to stand on the word of God. If that brings us a fight, so be it. All right? If that brings us a fight, so be it. As long as we're fighting from God's word. It's not about being a troublemaker. It's not just being nosy and, you know, a busybody. No, no, no. It's about standing on God's word. Now, look. If someone went through our YouTube channel, all right? Now, we only got 300 subscribers, right? It's not a big deal, but I'm sure we could get in trouble immediately. I'm sure if someone just went through our YouTube channel, reported it to the authorities, they will find comments, phrases, sentences that could easily be brought to the media's attention or brought to the government's attention. All right? No doubt, okay? But here's the thing. I'm not looking for that. I'm not looking for that. I'm just here to fight the good warfare. And by the way, the good warfare, when it talks about good, it means something that's valid, all right? Something worth fighting for. There are a lot of fights to have. There are a lot of false teachers. There are a lot of false religions. There are a lot of false churches. There are a lot of false Baptists. Am I called to fight everybody? No, no. We need to make sure we fight a good warfare. Look at chapter 6, please. 1 Timothy 6 verse 12. 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 12. The Bible says, fight the good fight of faith. The good fight. Something that's valid. It's a valid fight. It's going to help us in our ministry. It's going to help us get the gospel out to the Sunshine Coast and to Australia. These are the fights of faith that we need to fight. Lay hold on eternal life where unto thou art also called and has professed a good profession before many witnesses. A good profession. The fights that we embark on, if we ever get to a fight, it ought to bring forth a good profession before witnesses. People ought to look at us and say, wow, whether I agree with that church or not, it's amazing that they can stand strong in the word of God. Well, they actually believe that Bible. They actually believe that 2,000 year old book or whatever those passages are. Hey, we can set a good example before the witnesses if we fight a good fight of faith. And as bishops, as pastors, as deacons, you need to be someone that's ready to fight. Ready to fight. But fighting from the word of God. Standing true on the word of God. Let the fight come to you is what I'm trying to say. We're already fighting. Every time we get up and preach this book, every time we're doing that, we're just swinging it with the sword of the spirit. Every time. It's slashing. Every time. When it's on YouTube or whatever, some other public platform, people listening to it, people that disagree, it's cutting through. It's frustrating somebody. I hope it's opening the eyes of people. But that's the fight that we take. It's through the word of God. And we need to make sure that we're people that are not willing to compromise the word of God because we need to make sure we're people that are fighting with the sword, not with a butter knife, not with a spoon, but with the sword of the spirit. Please go to 1 Timothy 2. 1 Timothy 2 verse 1. 1 Timothy 2 verse 1. The fifth point of behavior that a pastor should have is that he's able to give himself to prayer. He's able to give himself to prayer. And I'll just be honest with you guys. This is something that probably my biggest challenge. I've always found prayer difficult. It's not that I don't pray. It's just that it's hard. It's a lot harder than it looks. It's actually, I find going soul winning, I find reading my Bible easier. I find going to church easier than praying. That's just the truth of it. Because you get into your closet, you're by yourself with the Lord, you bow your head, and you've got to basically pray in faith. This is why it's so important for us to have our prayer meeting on our Wednesday midweek services because it's so much easier when I've got a group of brethren, we're praying together, we're lifting up each other's arms in prayer, we're bringing each other in. You're more motivated. It's kind of like soul winning. When you're able to go soul winning with a group of people, you're a lot more motivated to go soul winning, aren't you? It's like prayer. When you've got a group of people together, you're a lot more motivated to pray together. But I find it sometimes very hard to pray. But this is one of the behaviors that a pastor must have. 1 Timothy 2 verse 1. 1 Timothy 2 verse 1. I exhort therefore that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. Verse number 2, for kings, and this is hard for us because we don't like our government very much. A lot of corrupt governments in the world, right? But it says here, we should be praying for them, for kings, and for all that are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Now, think about this. This is why we struggle with this. We don't like praying for our politicians because we know how corrupt a lot of them are. We know how ungodly a lot of them are, okay? But again, we're not praying for them to flourish and be successful. We're praying that we can live a quiet and peaceable life. That they would leave us alone, you know? That they wouldn't make ungodly laws that would stop us from serving the Lord God. That they wouldn't create laws that would stop us from soul winning or anything like that. That's what we should be praying for. And if anyone's trying to stop the liberty and the freedom that we have to be Christians, we should be praying that God will destroy that individual. That God will destroy that lovey group. That's what prayer should be, all right? It's not just, Lord, please give them another election to, you know, whatever to do. Well, no, no. In our election, no. Pray that we may live a quiet and peaceable life. In all godliness and honesty. Look at verse number three. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. That's what I need to remind myself. And you too, when you're struggling to pray, that it's good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. He loves it. He finds it acceptable and good when you are able to bow your head and close your eyes and bring your supplications and prayers before God. Look at verse number four. Who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. That's why we ought to be praying for men. We ought to be praying that we would have great opportunities to preach the gospel. We would see people saved. And I've seen that. I've seen, guys, I don't believe this is a coincidence. We were going through a real drought, weren't we? For a while. We weren't seeing anyone saved for weeks after weeks. And then we had our time of fasting and prayer. Literally the next week, we've been getting someone saved almost every week. I truly believe that was just an answer to prayer. And here it says, we can't fully understand the spiritual realm, how that all works. But I see that when we spend time in prayer, we're going to see more men come to the knowledge of the truth. Look at verse number eight, please. Verse number eight, drop down to 1 Timothy 2 verse eight. Paul says, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. So you see, as a pastor or someone of good behavior, someone that's setting an example, you ought to see me as a pastor of prayer. A man who bows my head, who prays, and that needs to rub off on you guys. You know, we need to be people, and I haven't got a problem. If you want to raise up your holy hands, that's what the Bible says. I'm not going to think you're a Pentecostal. I know sometimes as Baptist we're scared to be seen that way. Hey, but it's in the Bible there. Lift up your holy hands if that's going to help you pray. But the Lord wants therefore that men pray everywhere. That means all of us at every opportunity we have, we need to be people that stop and pray. But this has to come from the pastor. If you don't see your pastor praying, your church is not going to be a praying church. This is why, again, it's so important for me, the midweek services, we need to stop and pray. Please try to be there for the prayer. Please try to be there for the prayer time. It's usually pretty quick. We get through it pretty quickly, but it's such an important part of our church. Please go to 1 Timothy 5. 1 Timothy 5 verse 1. The sixth behavior of a pastor that I've got here, how we ought to behave ourselves in the house of God. And again, a lot of these things are things we've gone through, and you guys have preached a little bit about them through your 10-minute sermonettes. But I have here, of course, the topic of honoring. As a pastor, we ought to be people that honor the people in our church, that we honor the people in our church. Look at 1 Timothy 5 verse 1. It says here, rebuke not an elder. Now, I know a lot of people take this to talk about pastors. Rebuke not a pastor or a bishop. Now, I do believe we can apply this, that we can apply that as a secondary application. But if we look at the chapter carefully, we'll notice that it's about elderly people in the church, senior people in the church. So rebuke not an elder, that's an elderly man, but entreat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren, the elder women as mothers. So there's the elder women as comparison, right? The younger as sisters with all purity. Let's stop there for a moment. Remember, this epistle is from Paul to Timothy, a pastor. And he's telling the pastor, hey, you Timothy, as a pastor, don't rebuke an old man, okay? Entreat him as a father. Honor for the years that he's lived in his life. And the younger men as brethren, treat the other men as brethren. I'm not higher than you. I'm not more powerful than you. Yeah, we're brothers and sisters in the Lord. The elder women as mothers to treat the elder women respectfully like that, like you would your own mother. The younger as sisters with all purity. Looking after the sisters that are in this church, pastors ought to honor the church members. And I have a great, and I tell you now, this is probably one of the easier things for me. I have a great love. I have a great appreciation for the people that are in this church. This is actually what makes it easier for me to pray. Even though praying for me is hard, naturally, just having the love for the brethren, it's easy for me to be able to bring a brother or sister from this church or a family before the Lord because I truly appreciate, I truly honor the fact that you make up this church, New Life Baptist Church. Look at, sorry, verse number three. First Timothy chapter five verse three. Honor widows that are widows indeed. And I've said this before, we do have a widow in our church, don't we? And the Bible tells here that pastors ought to honor widows as well. Widows often because they don't have their husbands. They might go, might be seen as a second class citizen or something like that. But no, even widows. We're talking about elderly people. We're talking about widows. These people probably aren't able to do as much work for the churches as the younger people. But we're still called to honor them. There's still a brother and sister in the Lord. I never want elderly people to feel like, oh, this church is not for me because it's full of younger men. It's full of children. No, we can learn from the elderly. They've gone through life experiences and even pastors are called to honor them. It's not just about having your buddies and your little clique of friends. No, no, it's about honoring everybody. Regardless of age in the church. That's a behavior that a pastor must have. Look at 1 Timothy 5 verse 21. Drop down to verse 21. Verse 21. He says, I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels. Look at this. That thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality. I cannot have favorites in the church. Okay. Now I know I get along with some of you more than others. That's just the nature of things, right? But a pastor should not be one that's clearly, look, that's his favorite people. That's his favorite group. That's the only group he spends time talking with. No. The right behavior for a bishop is to have no favorite system, all right? To not be someone that has partiality, that prefers one. That's basically being a respect of persons. If you're lifting up one group of people, oh, but they're always soul-willing. That's a soul-willing group. They've got to spend more time with them. They've got to respect everybody. Okay. Everyone's able to serve in the church in some capacity. Of course the younger people are going to be able to get out a lot more and do a lot more hours and things like that. Of course it's going to be harder for mothers with little ones to get out there and be involved in the work as much as others. Of course it's going to be harder for the elderly that might be using walking sticks to do as much work for God, but a pastor should not be someone that just prefers one group over another. Okay. Without partiality. Okay. It's only fair in one before another. The seven points of behavior that I've got here that pastors ought to be thinking about, and please go to 1 Timothy 3. 1 Timothy 3. And basically this is about increasing the work of God. Increasing the work of God. And this is about ordination. Alright. I ought to be a man. I told you just earlier when I started this church, I didn't really have this in me. Okay. It's had to grow. It's had to develop in me. I've had to be put through experiences where it's drawn it out of me where we need to start a church, right? You guys know, I never planned to start a church down in Sydney. Alright. It's like the Lord forced it upon me. Just to get me going. Like, hey, Pastor Kevin, you've got to get going. You've got to start thinking about other church plans. You need to start organizing other groups because there's other places in this nation that needs the gospel being heard. And so I look back and it wasn't my plan, but it was God's plan. And as long as I was being used as a vessel for God, you know, a vessel of a good conscience, God was able to use me and use this church for us to plant a church down in Sydney. Praise God. They love the fact that they've got a church. They love the fact that you guys are willing to offer me up once a week to go down to Sydney and serve the brethren there. But look at this in 1 Timothy 3, 1. This is a true saying. If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desire for good work. You know, we need to get to a point of a behavior of church. It's not just us. It's not just, well, this is what's more important. We need to start thinking about, hey, we need to ordain other men. Are there other men? Are there other people that can become bishops? Are there people that are desiring this office? And if they desire the office, let's work with them. Let's give them the opportunity to learn and to grow and to mature. You know, it's not a mad rush. We don't have to start things immediately. But let's wait for the right man, you know, to be able to learn and to grow. Let's give him space. We know all of us have faults. We know all of us have weaknesses. And it's very easy to point fingers and say, well, I don't know about brother so-and-so because look at those problems that he has. Hey, give him a few years. Maybe over the years he's able to change those things. Maybe over the years he's able to develop and grow and become a greater man for God. But he needs your encouragement. If you're just pointing fingers and being critical, we're never going to have other bishops. We're never going to have deacons in this church. If we're so critical of one another, we need to encourage one another when they have a desire for this work. And deacons, look at verse number eight again. First Timothy 3.8. Likewise, must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not given too much wine, not gritty or filthy lucre. You know, a desire to grow a church. Why did a church need deacons? You remember why? Because the church was growing. The church was large and there were responsibilities being neglected in the church and so they needed deacons. Hey, this is about church growth, right? The behavior of a pastor ought to be one that he wants this church to grow again. It's the law that built this church. It's not about compromising. We do things biblically. We do it according to God's word and in the right time, Jesus Christ will increase our church. It has been growing steadily. It's been growing our church, okay? Bit by bit, you know? And we're just waiting for the law to continue but we need to make sure we don't compromise. You know, the right behavior, number seven there was to increase in the work of God. And please go to First Timothy chapter 5 verse 22. First Timothy chapter 5 verse 22 because I think this is a really good balance with what we just saw there is, you know, we don't want to rush into starting churches. We can't just be people that just start a church everywhere and then they fail or whatever. We have to make sure we're careful with every step that we take. And look at First Timothy 5 verse 22. Lay hands suddenly on no man. Don't ordain someone quickly. Don't do it suddenly. Neither be partakers of other men's sins. Keep thyself pure. You know, one day when I ordain a man, a bishop or a deacon, I need to make sure that I keep myself pure. I need to make sure I don't rush into a decision. I go, well, we just need a church in Melbourne. We just need a church in whatever, you know, Perth. And we just rush and we ordain the next person. That man could be a wicked man. He could have deceived me. He's probably, maybe, he's a baby in Christ. You know, I thought he was mature, but he's been a carnal Christian his whole life. He's got to destroy things, all right? Sometimes it's better to not start a church, you know, rather than try to start a church and it destroys people's lives. It hurts people. It puts them down, discourages them. That's not good. You know, you're rushing into these decisions. We need to have the right balance, you know. Pastors need to have the right balance. Yes, we want to increase the work, but at the right timing, the right resources, the right people, okay? And the last thing that I've got here, please go to 1 Timothy 1 verse 19, is that the bishop, the last behavior that I've got here, is that he needs to be a man of behavior that remains faithful, that remains faithful. Now, have you guys ever seen pastors that have gotten out of the faith? Well, maybe not completely out of faith, but are no longer serving in the way they used to because they've been unfaithful in some area. It's a sad thing. I've seen many men that I've looked up to in my life and I'm like, man, I want to be like that pastor. I want to be like that man of God and then they destroy their ministry. They destroy their lives. It's like, why couldn't you just stay faithful? Now, that's easy for me to say, but I'm made of the same flesh and blood. And I've got to remind myself, you've got to stay faithful. But when I think about these men that I've looked up to and when they've destroyed themselves, when they've become unfaithful, when they're no longer walking with God, it discourages me so many times. I get discouraged by it. And then I'm reminded, well, here's the thing. You can't let this church down, right? If you become unfaithful, if you don't walk after the ways of the Lord, you become carnal and worldly, you don't care about the things of God, I can destroy the faith of others. It's so important. Again, the example that was set here, the behaviour that we should have as pastors, 1 Timothy 1 verse 19, the Bible says, hold in faith, hold on to the faith is what it says here, and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck. The behaviour that pastors ought to have is a man that's going to hold on to the faith to the end. He's going to endure to the end, right? Being faithful to the Lord. Because it's so easy to become unfaithful. And when you do it, you destroy people that are watching you. You know? And you've got to be careful. This is something that you need, the behaviour that we need to have. Look at 1 Timothy 6 verse 11. 1 Timothy 6 verse 11. How do we do this? How do we remain faithful? 1 Timothy 6 verse 11. But thou, O man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. What does that sound like to you? The fruits of the Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit. You know, a pastor, the behaviour, he needs to be a man that has these fruits coming out of his life. That it's obvious this is a man of faith, love, patience, meekness, etc. Follow after these things. You know, that's how we remain faithful. By walking in the new man, by walking in the Spirit. And look at verse number 8, please. 1 Timothy 6 verse 8. This is a reminder to pastors here, and look, I'm not getting paid much by this church. I'm not complaining about it, right? I don't want to ever get to a point where I complain about that, okay? And if this church is not able to provide my needs, if I get to a point where I'm just going to have to work, I'm just going to have to get that part-time job, whatever it is that I need. But here's the reminder who in verse number 8, and having food and reignments, let us be there with content. Man, if you want to be a pastor, you need to be someone that is able to be content with food and reignments. It doesn't say food, reignments, and a house. It doesn't say food, reignments, and a car. Just food and reignments. You know, if you're able to just be able to have food, to be able to live, just the clothes you need to get through life, the Bible, as a pastor, that should be enough to let you continue serving the Lord, to be content in life. This is hard. Hard, right? Because we live in a rich country. I live in a society that's been telling me you've got to own a house. You've got to work hard, and you've got to buy multiple houses. You've got to have investment properties, and you've got to save up for the future. You've got to have your superannuation ready for your retirement. You've got to have all these things in plan. You've got to have all these insurances to cover you here, and there, and everywhere. Jesus says, or God says, be content with just food and reignments. Wow. That makes it easy, in a sense, because now you don't have to worry about so many things. But it's hard in this society, because of the pressures of the world. But as pastors, the behavior we ought to have is to be content with just food and reignments. So, you know, I want you to think about that one, because I think it's hard, like I said, in Australia, and if you have a desire to be a pastor, you have a desire to be a deacon, or just be a strong leader in the church, you've got to get to a point where, if you've just got food and reignments, you're happy. Say, praise God, I've got food. Praise God, my kids had breakfast this morning. Praise God, I've got clothes to get through the winter, I've got food to drive, that should be enough to give us content in life. And I'm not perfect, as I go through this, you know, this is why this is a letter for pastors. All right, so pastors can be reminded, continue to work, continue to grow, to improve, to mature. I'm not perfect at these things, but I'm here to just preach the word of God. This is what the word of God says. And if you've got a desire to be a leader, you've got to keep these things in mind as well. You know, these are the right behavior, this is the right behavior that you need to have. A behavior of teaching, a behavior of honoring the people in your church, a behavior to increase the work of God that's to ordain others, a behavior to remain faithful. I think that's all, did I miss one? To be vigilant and watchful, to fight the good fight of faith, and to give himself to prayer. Those eight things were the things that a pastor or a bishop or a deacon should be striving to have the right behavior in the house of God. Let's pray.