Sola Scriptura: The Sufficiency of Biblical Preaching (Keith's 15th Year Celebration)

I want you to think about three things this evening. Number one, a faithfulness through suffering. Faithfulness through suffering. Number two, faithfulness to scripture as a pastor. Number three, faithfulness to scripture for the man of God for the church. So these are three different things. This is not a normal sermon I would normally do. Normally I would just work through the text and not really even, quite frankly, talk about other people that much. But considering the nature of it and considering it's on the front of the paper, 15-year celebration. There is a charge that will be in the second point to Keith. There will also be a charge to the church as you faithfully seek to hold him accountable and to encourage him in his ministry. So I hope that will be an encouragement to you. That doesn't mean that you just blank out for the other points, but if you really have to zone in, then please zone in to those points where you were specifically being addressed.

Faithfulness through suffering

The first one, the first point I want you to see here is the faithfulness through suffering. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we know this. If you are to grow in godliness, you must suffer. It's not optional. It's not something that we get to not have. Scripture is very clear here as Paul speaks to his beloved son, Timothy.

You have followed my teaching and my conduct.

This is important for us, that our doctrine and our life are not two separate things. We don't get to be deep in doctrine and light on life. We need both. We need to have a theology of grace, but also a life that is gracious. When you believe in God's powerful grace, that should make you gracious. It should make you tender. People should hear you and see you and think, ah, here comes those grace people again. Here comes those people who love God and who point to his holiness, and at the same time, They don't take themselves too seriously. They are very open with this grace of God that God has forgiven them, that he has unmerited grace that's poured out according to his word, through the gospel, through the work of Jesus Christ.

He says,

my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness

, all these things,

my persecutions and sufferings.

And he goes through basically recounting what happened there in Acts 13 and 14, if you want to go back and look at that later on. As you consider the sufferings that happened to him in Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, all these persecutions, he says, I endured.

There's something that's very important for us to understand as Christians. Christians in general, if you were to be a follower of Christ, and I don't even want to assume that everyone here who claims to be a follower of Christ is, but if you are a follower of Christ, you claim that, understand there is a certain measure of spiritual grit that God gives to his people to endure suffering. is not for the thin-skinned and the thick and the calcified hearts. That's not what Christians are called to be. We're not called to have thin skins and hard hearts, but rather thick skins and soft hearts. We are rather called to be people who are able to endure suffering

I remember I was privileged one time to talk to Dr. Moeller, and this is about during the time where you actually could talk to Dr. Moeller. Keith and I were both there at a wonderful time where Dr. Moeller was just becoming more well-known, and one of the times I spoke with him, I asked him, I was like, how in the world do you endure being in a convention sometimes where people don't always agree with you? In fact, they actually put you down sometimes for your theology. And he just looked at me and without a second thought said,

brother, you have to understand God has called us, not just as Christians, but especially as godly ministers of the word to have a thick skin. And if you don't have that thick skin, you probably shouldn't be in ministry.

And as a 21 year old who didn't even know what I didn't know, that was a good word for me. It was a good word to encourage me and brothers and sisters, I encourage you to ask God to help you to have thick skins, but soft hearts. Not to have calloused hearts and thin skins where every little suffering, every little thing, all the microaggressions of our age that seem to be an abundance, that you always are complaining about what's going wrong or what people are doing to you and hurting your feelings. But rather, how can God grow me through this suffering? Perceive suffering or otherwise. God, help me here. Help me to desire to live a godly life in Christ, to endure suffering for the sake of the gospel.

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ will be persecuted.

Verse 12. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. So, are you ready to suffer? One of the lines I've been giving to a lot of our people as we are pursuing a lot of new ministry. I'm blessed. We have been there for seven years. I've been there at seven years of this church. And Keith was there and I reached out to him and ironically reached out to me because some of you might have known the Rollins, a family that was very near and dear to your hearts. And now they're at our church and they've been there for seven years. And we had that communication and we just kind of rekindled that relationship. We spent some time talking about how God was working in their lives, and it's just, it's a sweet type of thing for pastors to have that interaction about how God is working, not just in our own churches, but when people go to other churches and how God is going to use them. And I still thank God for how Keith and Lisa and many of you here no doubt invested in the Rollins and love them. And as she is about to be very, she is very great with child, about to have her fourth child and to see Jonas and how he is growing and how he is loving the Lord and leading his family well, I encourage you that what you do makes a difference for the sake of the kingdom as you endure even the suffering of loss of dear loved ones.

It is difficult sometimes as a pastor to be in a place and see people leave and have to say goodbye. I absolutely hate it. I moved to a small town where everyone seemed to know everybody and no one ever moved away so that I never have to say goodbye again to some degree. Right? That's why people go to small towns. That's just not true.

We live in such a transient age nowadays that these things happen sometimes out of our control. And sometimes they should happen because they are intentional works of the kingdom to bring people to other places to do the work that God has called them to do.

I encourage you, brothers and sisters, to endure suffering. Even that suffering can be used for God's glory. In fact, I would argue all suffering ultimately for the Christian does end up being for God's glory. In some way, shape, or form where God forgives them or whether God convicts them and then uses that to be a witness to others, God is so faithful. He is so faithful to us to help us endure through suffering.

I would argue it's one of the marks of the church that we don't talk about enough. The necessity and the good of suffering that God has chosen to use suffering to bless us. A message we don't want to hear, and yet we deeply need to hear.

Because verse 13 tells us,

while people and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived

, these things will still go on around us. False teachers is kind of the context here. You will see false teachers, they'll go from bad to worse. You'll see people around you. Keith will see other men around him who might very well have very large churches who aren't preaching the gospel and the temptation will be just compromise. Just let it go. Just let this thing go and compromise in this way and maybe you'll be okay still.

Be faithful to the Scripture

Brother, now as we go to the second point, I wanna encourage you as Paul does here to Timothy. to be faithful to the Scripture, no matter what. My charge to you, brother, as you look at verses 14 and 15, is,

but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed.

God did not waste His time in bringing you to this church. God has taught you many things, not just in seminary, but even here at this church. God has used you to teach your pastor. Don't just think that the discipleship is one way, where he comes to the pulpit and he preaches and he teaches and it's all just one way. No, God is using you to also disciple your pastor and his family. The good, the bad, and the ugly of it all, God uses to grow his men who are in the pulpit and who are faithfully preaching the word. God has formed Keith. because of suffering. If he had not suffered, he would not be as good of a pastor to you.

But Keith, I encourage you, brother, you will encourage others by how you deal with your suffering. Know that God is going to firmly anchor you in what you have already believed, knowing whom you have learned it. As you have learned it from family and friends, and of course, faithful professors and teachers, and how you have believed the sacred writings, you see the sacred writings, the scriptures, are what we always come back to. You never outgrow scripture. You go deeper in scripture, you go deeper in the gospel, but you never go beyond it. It's never gospel plus something else. When you start falling into those traps and into those areas of life where you start believing what the world has to say, there's a real danger there. A real danger that you might be very well taken away from faithful biblical ministry.

So, brother, I want to encourage you. I want to encourage you to love the Word faithfully. And that means, also, as you consider the characteristics of a pastor, which, by the way, all elders, and you know this, and your pastor is an elder, what every Christian should be and elder must be, his character must exhibit what the Bible says.

Which means, when the Bible says to a Christian,

husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church

, Keith, you must love your wife as Christ loved the church. She is your better half in that sense, and I jokingly say, and it's more tongue-in-cheek, that often my wife is like the voice of the Holy Spirit.

With the Bible, it does great things to my hard heart. And often God will use a godly woman to encourage her husband to pursue godliness because that's what a helpmate looks like. We cannot forget that God, in calling our wives our helpmates, is not to say that they are lesser, but rather God is using them in a way that he uses even himself, because God is called our help. God is called our comforter.

And in that sense, brother, love your wife. Sacrifice for her. Love your children. Pray for them regularly. Say yes to them more often if you can, by God's grace, than you even do sometimes to your church. It's easy sometimes to say no to our wives and children because oftentimes pastors, by the way, all pastors have an extra mistress, just so you know. And that mistress is often the church.

If a pastor actually cares for the church and actually loves the church, it is difficult to get the church off of their mind. They are always thinking about them. They're always praying for them. And there are times, by God's grace, they have to rest and say, no, I did not marry the church. That church belongs to Jesus. The church does not belong to me. Keith, this is not your church. It's Christ's church.

And because it's Christ's church, you are free, brother, to take a break every now and then, amen? It's good for your soul. It's good for the soul of your wife. It's good for the souls of your children.

Brother, love those sweet girls. Brother, pray for them regularly. And brother, I encourage you as you think about the Word, never forget that your church cannot grow beyond, and that's in some sense, your own growth. If you're not taking time to rest, if you're not taking time to be in the Word, if you're not taking time to continue to grow and develop in your own theological understanding and growing to love Jesus more and to take yourself less seriously, but God more seriously, if you don't take the time to do that, the church will suffer. So it is a priority, and brothers and sisters in Christ, I encourage you, I implore you, for the men in your church, if you want your men to be godly men, encourage them to the same behavior. Say, pastor, we want you to be this example of godliness for your wife and children, and we want the other men to follow suit, and also following godly patterns for men loving their wives, sacrificing for them. hurting for them, not trying to hurt them, but being sensitive to their needs.

A church loving a pastor

Our last point here is we consider what it means to be a church loving a pastor, because there's lots of areas, quite frankly, where Keith is not perfect. He has been here 15 years. Many of you know them. Several of you who work with him know them well. His wife probably knows them best of all.

Keith also is very aware of his failures. Keith loves this church dearly. He wouldn't be here for 15 years if he didn't. And quite frankly, that means sometimes the church needs to say, Pastor, how can we be gracious to you?

In fact, I've always wanted to share this book, but I'm too ashamed to ask of it for myself, and maybe you're familiar with it. Christopher Ashe, who writes a lot of wonderful things, encouraging churches to examine sermons and how to prepare for morning worship and things like that. Christopher Ashe has written a wonderful little book, and I would commend it. It is my joy, because I'm not your pastor and I can say this. I would never ask my church to do this. It's too embarrassing.

The book literally says,

the book your pastor wishes you would read, but it's too embarrassed to ask you. The book your pastor wishes you would read, but it's too embarrassed to ask you.

Well, number one, he didn't even really know until recently, I don't think, that I was coming, so he didn't say anything to me about this. And I say this as my gift to you, brother. that your church needs to be familiar with this little book because of some of its very practical advice. Many of the things, from what I understand, this church is already doing.

So I wanna encourage you, church, first of all, that many of the things that are in this book, I already see this church doing, which is how Keith is able to endure here. But I encourage you to go and look at it, to evaluate it. Brother Elders, I encourage you to go and to look at those things and encourage him. It is not an easy job being a pastor. Yes, we do work more than one day a week. Right? And most of you who have been beneficial, who have benefited from that ministry, you know that.

As you look at Scripture, it says here in verses 16 and 17,

all Scripture is breathed out by God.

It's inspired by Him. It's profitable for teaching. That's that positive instruction in holiness and righteousness, what it looks like to love God, for reproof. telling you what not to believe, for correction, that's when you're not living the way that you should, and then for training in righteousness, how should I ethically be living? How should I be practicing the Christian life on a day-to-day basis?

You see, all these things are good

that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Church, this helps the man of God, but it also helps him when you listen. It does help you. when you listen to your pastor who wishes to faithfully preach the word. You're not listening to just Keith. You're not just listening to a man who comes in this pulpit and has done preparation so that he can give a talk. These are not TED Talks. These are not just encouraging little pick-me-ups. This is not self-help time. This is, has God spoken? And if he has, I need to hear it so that I can have life and so that I can live my life in a way that exalts the living God and is a blessing. to my brothers and sisters in Christ.

So church, I encourage you to encourage your pastor to keep doing those things when he does well, if he really, and yes, it's kind of like playing a baseball game or whatever sports you like. Sometimes you hit a single, sometimes you never get on base, okay? Pastors are not gonna knock at home every single Sunday. Brother, that we could, amen? We wish we could. In fact, sometimes we're not even sure if we got on base, and those are the times we really need the encouragement.

Brother, I was praying for you this morning. We're thankful you're our pastor.

And I know what that means, okay? I've heard that before. I know what that means. I am not dumb, okay? But I am so thankful that the church loves me through that, because oftentimes, by the Word of God, He will use those words that we think we have not done a good job in, and use that very Word, because it's the Word that does the work. It's the Word that does the saving. It's the Spirit of God working through the Word, through this servant who is the man of God, who, yes, works hard, and yes, has studied hard, and yes, has tried to be faithful.

Church, encourage your pastor Church, be praying for his wife as much, if not more, than he does. Pray for Lisa, pray for Lillian, pray for Ivy, pray for Edith. Let the only one who maybe knocks on the door of God to cry out for their hearts and to cry out for their salvation, to cry out for their growth, be Keith. Are you praying for your pastor's family? I encourage you, church, to do that. If you don't, then I promise you, it will show up in how you treat him.

Do not forget that yes, your pastor is the one you might pay, that you might employ. but that pastor's first and foremost ministry is to his family. So encourage him to do it well, that the man of God may be complete as he understands the word, equipped for every good work. You want your pastor to be equipped for every good work. You want to encourage him to be in the word regularly on his own. Maybe even ask him if you feel so bold or if you are spending time with him. Pastor, do you get to just enjoy reading the scriptures? on your own besides preaching?

And sometimes I know when I have a break, I read the Bible and I'm like, I don't have to prepare for preaching this week, but I'm just reading the Bible for fun. I get to be a regular Christian that week. It is, even the baby gets, I mean, it's funny. Right? But the pastor needs that too for his own soul to be reminded that as we handle holy things so often, it's easy to just treat them as just part of the job. but he needs to be reminded often, no brother, you need to be fed and nurtured by the word too.

You need to hear. I heard your brother Josh preach here recently and did a fabulous job. I've heard other brothers here preach. I like to watch other people's sermons and that feeds my soul. I'm so thankful for the people God has equipped here to share the gospel in the ways that they do. And we have men at our church that we're raising up as well. And by the way, I wanna encourage you to keep doing that. Because that not only is a blessing to your pastor, it also gives him a break where he feels confident in someone that can handle the Word well. There's nothing scarier than a pastor not being sure if someone can handle the Word well when he's not in the pulpit. Again, because he loves this body.

But I wanna encourage you, as you think about this church, realize that your pastor is a man. Your pastor needs grace, your pastor needs rest, but keep encouraging him. There's no such thing as having too much encouragement. Some people are like, yes, but we don't want our pastor to go soft. You know, every now and then, we need to have and exert the spiritual gift of meanness. that God might refine our pastor as by fire. And I was like, brother, there are plenty of things in ministry that will refine him. You don't have to be Satan's tools. God has not called you to be Satan's tools. And if that is your nickname in the heart of your pastor, shame on you. It's time to confess some sin.

Encourage each other in the word

But rather, as your pastor sees you coming, let him think, this brother or sister is coming to encourage my soul today. And I'm so thankful for him. Not, oh no, here they come again. And if that's something you struggle with, ask the Lord to help you with that. Because often that says more about you than it does about your pastor. And I wanna encourage you today that this is not something you need to do by yourself. You do this as a body. We get to serve the Lord together as a church. We get to do these things, not in our own strength. We do these things fueled by the Word. By being in the Word, then we pass along the Word, we encourage the pastor to preach the Word, and faithfulness then looks like God's work in us working through the Word.

Faithfulness is not just my ability to be obedient in my own strength. That's what we call legalism. And I promise you, you will become more harnessers of the gift of spiritual meanness than you will of grace if you're trying to be obedient out of your own strength. Rather, lean on the Spirit. Ask God to empower you by His Spirit through His Holy Word. Feed on the Word for yourself so that when you come Sunday morning, you're like, give it to me, preacher. Let me hear it.

Let me be convicted. But also, God, let me be encouraged by what my pastor has prepared for me this morning.

Keith, thank you, brother, for your friendship over these 20-some years. Wow, we can't be that old. We're middle-aged now, which means all the younger people think we're old, and all the older people think we're still too young. The good news is, is that God, by his grace, will hopefully use you. I look forward to seeing you in 15 years from now, because God's faithfulness, not because Keith is so good, but because God has made Keith so humble. He's made him a man of the word. Keith has said this to me many times.

Keith, if it's not in the Bible, we don't wanna do it.

And I hope all God's people will say, amen.

So as you go from here tonight, encourage each other in the word. Elders, encourage your people in the word.

Encourage your brother elder in the word. Encourage each other to suffer well together, to suffer with hope, but to realize God is gonna use that to grow you and to point you towards your Christ, to point you towards your Lord and Savior in an even deeper way than you are already. and God will get all the glory.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for our time. Thank you for your grace and your mercy. And Lord, as we're about to sing, we thank you for these songs that remind us of your biblical truth. Thank you, Lord, for raising up men like Keith, for raising up a godly wife like Lisa. Lord, thank you for what you're doing in this church. Lord, we give you all the praise and glory. We pray that you would continue to give grace to this church.

Lord, that this church as a sending church, as a heart that seeks to send others, that this church will continue to be blessed, that you will continue to bring people here to raise up leadership, to raise up other men and women who will help with the work of the ministry. Lord, you are not done here yet. And we thank you for that.

And until you return, until your son returns, we pray, Father, you will give Keith the strength he needs until you're done with him. We trust you to do it. We love you for it. In Christ's name. Amen.