A Leader Worth Following

So I'm going to go with just one more time on that, not that it's a competition. We've got Michel Owen in this service though, so I feel like we should win. Hey, Street, how are we doing? Been about 20 years ago, brand new pastor, okay? New to the game. It's kind of a crazy turn in life. There's a guy pouring into me, investing in me. We're going through systematic theology together every week, and he says, hey, I want to plan a church in Boulder, Colorado, and I'm going to go there and meet with the churches that are there, and I'd love for you to go with me, and I'm thinking, man, this is awesome, like I'd love to go and see what God is doing there, because we just want to see what God is doing there. We're going to meet with some pastors and whatnot. So we fly over to Boulder together, and it's me, he and I and two other pastors. And as we're driving into the city, there's just these enormous churches like up in the hills and the foothills, and I'm just like, what are you doing? Like, why are you going to plant a church here? Like there's churches everywhere, like just sending people to these churches, you know? There's great churches here. And so then this is in my head though, I'm internalizing, I'm just learning all we can, I've got my journal and my pen, I'm just writing down, taking notes as fast as I can, and we go and we sit down with the first pastor of this really large church. We had heard they're doing big things, and we're talking to him, and he's asking him all these questions, and the pastor starts talking about small groups, community, and I'm like, this is amazing, because I'd heard, you know, I'd been, I'd benefited from community, and I'm like, oh, they do community, like we do community, that's awesome, and he's telling us all about it, and their systems and processes and strategies, and I said, what about you? You know, just real meekly, I'm like, hey, what about you, like, what does community look like for you? Are you in a small group?

He kind of sits back, he's taken aback by the question, and he's just like, no, like, how could I be in a small group? You know, I'm shepherding the flock, I can't intermingle with the flock, you know, because I can't let the flock know my struggles, like that wouldn't be right, and he said it in such a matter of fact way, I'm like, oh, wow, I didn't know, I didn't know how that was, that's how that was done, and I kind of filed it away, like, that's weird, like, that's odd. And then we go to the next church, and this is the one where it was a plant, it was kind of new, it was a new movement, we had heard, it was like the fastest growing in the area, like, people were coming, and we sit down with the pastor, and right out the gate, in the first sentence, he drops an F bomb, and I thought, that's weird, you know, that's interesting, didn't see that coming, and then he just, like, the vulgarity of the conversation was overwhelming, and I'm just thinking, this is so strange. And this would be strange for any Christian to say these things, much less a leader of a movement of God, like, I can't reconcile these two realities, I just thought that's odd, so then we go to the next church, and the next pastor, and this one, it was just, everybody was so, I don't know how to say it, and I know it's going to sound judgmental, but it just, everybody was so fake, like, hey there brother, so glad you're here, you know, today, welcome to first one, and it was just like, you know, robotic, and this is what we do, and we don't have any conflict here, it's amazing, the grace of God has just protected us from people not disagreeing, and I was like, what, in the world? And we get back on the plane to go home, and my friend's like, I've got to go there. Like I've got to go start a local expression of the church, it was interesting that these places look so impressive from afar, but once you got close, you just saw a leadership void, it contrasts that with another church that I visited, life church. From afar, okay, they're out of Oklahoma City, from afar, I was very skeptical. I thought, you know, this is big, they got 46 campuses, how do you shepherd, you know, 45,000 people, or however many their members are, like, that's impossible, if it's big, it can't be biblical, if it's that big, and it's led like an organization, like a company, like these are my skepticism going in, and so they invite me close, they ask me to come

and speak there one Sunday, and I started going in every single room that I went in. I was so impressed with the humility of the leadership there, their plans, they talked about how they made sure every one of their members was shepherded, how that they would go into these cities that lacked a healthy local expression of the church, and they would plant churches there in their heart for mission, in their heart for Bible translation, and they're thinking strategically about how they use the resources that God has entrusted them to help everyone follow Jesus, and they put the Bible, the Bible on a That's with a B, a billion devices like we, I know you're like, that doesn't even make sense. I know they did it. They put a church, a local church put a buy, is you version, the you version, it's on a lot of your phones? Like raise your hand if you have you version on your phone. Yeah. Okay. Everybody. So that, that's, that church made that. They made that. It's just like a hair streak that, hey, here's an idea. Let's put the Bible on everybody's phone and they come up with a billion devices. They're translating the Bible that they've got 46 campuses in 12 states and, and I was just like, this is crazy, but what about the leadership? And so then Pastor Craig Rochelle invites Monica and I on a, to spend the weekend with he and his wife and I'm, I can't even get a question in. I can't even get a question in because he's like, Hey, so I heard about Harris Creek. So he got services 9 and 11 and a four and it seems like you're one third college students of a Baylor, but I looked at the distance and it's this far. And so it's like, what's it? And y'all are doing small groups. You have the region on Monday night.

And he's like, he's done his homework and he's asking me all like, Oh, you're a learner. You know, and then I see how well he loves his wife and his children, how they love Jesus and his son comes here. He's like, Hey, I want my son to go through your preaching deal. I hear you developing preachers. I'd love for my son to go there. So a son comes here and hangs out with us and then, you know, they're just, they're all encouragers and I'm like, oh, that makes sense. So I speak there, everything, you know, that I do goes before elders here. They approve it. They said, Hey, go do that. I go and I speak there. They pay me a generous honorarium that honestly, most of the time goes to Harris Creek. So if somebody pays me, I give it to the church, right? But this time they give me this generous, I'm in my hotel room. I'm looking at it. I'm like, I can't accept it. I don't want to take money from this movement of God. I rip it up. And I'm just like, I can't, I can't take it. I don't want like you guys, what you're doing with the Lord's resources, the way that you're multiplying. And so from afar, I'm skeptical. I get close and I'm like, this is a powerful movement of God. And here's what I'll tell you is leadership is everything. Leadership is everything, everything rises and falls with leadership. And every one of you lest you think I'm talking about church, every one of you is a leader. You have a sphere of influence. It might be your home. It might be your classroom.

It might be your sorority fraternity, your team, intramural, every single person, your carpool line, your mahjong gang. Every person here has a sphere of leadership. How are you doing at being God's leader to the people that he's entrusted to you? Because everything rises and falls with leadership. And as we move into this new series, Titus, you can turn to Titus in your Bibles. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st of 2nd Thessalonians, 1st of 2nd Timothy, Titus, right there, small book. We're going to spend five weeks. And this is the idea that Paul starts with is everything rises and falls with leadership. He says, Titus, you have to find leaders. And he's going to send Titus recruiting on the largest Greek island of Crete. There's churches there in every city. This is 160 mile wide, 13,200 square miles this island. He says, you've got to go door to door, house to house and find the godliest, best leaders you can find. And he sends them on a recruiting mission so that the church is strengthened. And we, in 2000 and 26, we are skeptical of leadership. And we have great reason to be. Like consider the food you eat. You can watch a Netflix special on this if you'd like, but you're like, you know, it would seem that the leader of an organization that produces food would try to make the highest quality food for the fairest price, for the people, right? Because they're shareholders and stock prices and money involved, right, you think, hey, we can make this lesser expensive food, we can make more of it. And we can sell it in this way so we can maximize profits and drive the stock price up. And so we don't know what we're eating. How about health care? It would be amazing if they're like, we just want everyone to be healthy. But if everyone's healthy, then they don't need medicine.

So big pharma, right? They're like, well, we need you in some ways to be sick, so you're reliant on this medicine. So stock prices. How about government? It'd be awesome if government was like, we just want what is best for the land. But in reality, what they want is to be reelected. So sometimes they tell lies. Believe it or not, sometimes people in government say things that aren't completely true. So you'll vote for them. How about churches? People on TV have made my job very difficult, because they say, "Hey, just give a little more so that if you sow this, and sow this seed, then God's going to produce a harvest in your life." Lo and behold, they get a percentage of what you give them, and so there's no confusion. I do not get a percentage of what you give to Harris Creek. I don't get a bonus if one of you trusts Christ. My income is fixed, okay? And so we're untrusting of church leadership, right? We're untrusting of all leadership, but how about those who've been entrusted to your leadership? Are you trustworthy? Because that's the leadership you have the most control over. Are you a good leader in your home or in your apartment? Are you a good leader amongst your classmates or your co-workers? Do people esteem you as a godly leader? This is what Paul is going to do out the gate talking to Titus in this book, "Find God-fearing leaders." We, Harris Creek, is a 150-year-old Baptist church outside of Waco. How do we make sure that our next 100 years are our very best? Everything rises and falls with leadership, not just leadership, but leadership, okay?

Influence. We're going to look at how we're called to lead well at home, lead with character, and lead from truth. We do have elders here just to show you these are the elders of Harris Creek. We also have deacons here. These are biblical roles in the Scripture. It's not super common for Baptist churches to have elders, to be elder-led. These are guys. We meet every single Wednesday. We meet every week, sometimes we move around, we meet every week, to pray for you all to discuss the direction of the church, the biggest challenges that we're facing, the strategy, and the theological foundation of this place, and they shepherd me, okay? They see everywhere I go, everything I do, everywhere I speak, and we're talking through all the hard questions every single week. This is what Paul is going to tell Titus to do. Let's dive in. Verse 1, Titus 1, verse 1, "Paul, a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to further the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness. In the hopes of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, and which now, at his appointed season, has brought to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior, to Titus, my true son and our common faith, grace and peace from God, the Father, and Christ Jesus our Savior." Why does he start that way? I mean, that is like a theological, like profound introduction. He says, "Titus, I want you to remember what is true and what is important." So the flow of this is faith, leads to truth, which leads to godliness, which leads to hope. What you believe creates what you are. Teach the Cretans this, teach the people in the churches there this, Titus, remember who you are. And then he says, "Because we are brothers in the faith," and this answers some questions.

Who wrote this letter? Paul wrote the letter. Who'd he write it to? Titus. So this is one of three pastoral epistles, one of three pastoral letters where he's writing from one pastor to another pastor. It's a letter that the Holy Spirit God breathed that we are to read and to apply to our churches today. Why did God, why did the Holy Spirit preserve these letters so that we can use them in leading the church? What did they say something really inconvenient? What did they say something we don't like? What did they say something culturally irrelevant today? You better believe we're going to stay on the truth. No matter what it costs, no matter how difficult, we're going to do what it says. But what if people disagree? We're going to stand before the Lord and we're just going to say as best as we could. We did what you said, as best as we could. We did what you said. So Paul writes this about 64 AD between Roman imprisonment. He had just got out of being imprisoned in Rome. He's actually going back to being imprisoned in Rome. And he writes this letter to Titus, who he's left. Titus is his fixer. When things get messy, Paul sends Titus. Titus is not mentioned in Acts, but mentioned in Acts. kind of chaotic, Paul sent Titus. Now in Crete on this island, the largest Greek island that is, their churches are in disarray, the gospel is leaking and being convoluted with other truth, people are confused, they don't know what they believe anymore. Paul says, "I'm sinned in my ninja, like go, my guy, my problem solver, my secret agent, go get him, Titus."

The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished, F-B-D-O-O is the Greek word there. To bring to order the chaos, this is why Paul left Titus in Crete. To bring to order the chaos, how are you going to do that? A point elders in every town as I directed you, an elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. He says, "You got to find guys who live a righteous life, they're not given to drunkenness or addiction or dishonest dealings, they're faithful in marriage and they have obedient children." He says, "You got to go and find these guys." He talks about elders, overseers, press patours. So right about now, you're like, "But what about us?" This is what the Scripture says to you. 1 Timothy 3, verse 1, "Here is a trustworthy saying, 'Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task.' Some people are like, "Well, I don't want to be an elder. That's wrong. You should want to be an elder. It should be a desire and it is a God-honoring noble desire to want to be an elder." And if the ladies are here like, "Well, what about us? What about us?" Here's what it says in Hebrews 13, verse 7, "Remember your leaders who spoke the Word of God to you, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith." All of us, the instruction here given to us today is for all of us. It's going to change the things in your home, in your household, with your grandchildren, amongst your roommates, those in your sorority and fraternity, are you a leader worth following? How do you become a leader worth following? He's going to tell us, and he starts with number one, lead well at home. Lead well at home. It says, "In your home, you're to be blameless." What does it mean to be blameless? Well, when others blame you, you have lots of alibis. They say, "No." They come and say, "Hey." So she was gossiping the other day, and everybody goes, "No, no, I know her well. She doesn't gossip." That's not her thing. She finds no delight in talking about people who aren't there. And they say, "Well, I saw him in Vegas acting unruly at the tables, not my neighbor. I know him well. I spent lots of time with him." And people come, they say, "No, no, that blame doesn't stick to them, because they live a life above reproach that when accusations are made, everyone's like, 'There's no way.'" We'll inspect it, but that does not seem consistent of them. I took some shade recently, I always do, because of the way I answer questions, short and sweet. I lack nuance. I understand. Someone said, "I'm interested in a strong Christian guy, but he gets drunk every weekend," which I said, "He's not a strong Christian guy. He's not. You can't be. In the history of the

world, there's never been a strong Christian guy who gets drunk every weekend. It's never happened. It doesn't exist. It doesn't happen." Another one said, "I have sex outside of marriage, but I have a strong faith." No, you don't. You don't have a strong faith? Hey, you can be a believer and have sex outside. I cannot tell who is saved and unsaved. The Scripture says you'll know by their fruit, but you don't have a strong faith, because a strong faith is not going to lead you into unrepentant perpetual sin. It won't. A strong faith is going to keep you from this. And people are like, "You're harsh. You're useless." Listen, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is the reality that saved my life. You may need coddling and a shoulder to wrong way and it's going to kill you. You have to stop looking at that, drinking that, going there, hanging with them. This is what I needed. He says faithful to his wife. That's not just not an adulterer, but someone who values the fidelity of marriage, their diligent at keeping the foxes out of the vineyards. The Scripture says avoid passionate lust. Avoid passionate, do not be given to passionate lust like the pagans. That's what it says. Not given to passionate lust like the pagans. Okay, here's a question for you. Trade your question. According to the Bible, that's a verse, by the way. Not given to passionate lust like the pagans. According to the Bible, who is given to passionate lust? That's right. You guys nailed it. The pagans. Pagans are given to passionate lust. That's what the Scripture says. Who's a pagan? A non-believer. Someone who is not yielded to the Holy Spirit or does not have the Holy Spirit. They're not following Christ. Those people are given to passionate lust. So someone who's blameless is not given to passionate lust. They may have an experience and feel and desire lust, but they say, no, no, no, and they confess and they widen the circle and they say, help me and they yell for help until somebody comes and helps them. Until they get help because they don't want to be given to passionate lust and they get help. A man whose children believe, not wild and disobedient, believing children is an interpretive challenge because you could say, well, I mean, we're not sovereign over our children. I will tell you the godliest dad I've ever known had a prodigal. Pista is the word, belief. Some translate it faithful. Here's what I believe in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus wanted to say. They should raise their children in the faith. We're not in charge of the outcome, but they should raise them and discipline them and show them the way of faith. I led a young adult ministry. I think post-college 20s, it grew to be the largest ministry in the world

of its kind. The reason I say that is because I had a front row seat of over and I've done the maths, a real number of over a hundred thousand young adults that came through there in 12 years or a hundred thousand young adults. What happened was so much of ministry's pattern recognition and you always have a heart to grow and you want to know what works and what doesn't and you want to learn from whoever you can learn from, well, you would see these sibling groups come through there. Like four, five, six brothers and sisters would come through there, like multiple ones. They were always, like these particular sibling groups, there was like 10 to 15 that would come through there of like four, five, six children, like large families and all of their siblings were amazing. We would just farm them out into leadership positions. I got the place where we had kids and I'm like, man, I want to learn from them. So I sat those sibling groups down and I interviewed them and I looked for the patterns and every single one of them came from a home with a mom and a dad who loved each other and loved God and lived out their faith. They shared their faith, they took in foster children, they used their resources to further ministry, they were ministry minded and it's not surprising that the entire sibling groups were like, hey, we want to give our lives as a living sacrifice to the Lord. Like we want to follow God. Our parents lived out their faith. If I was to summarize it, there's other things. There's nuance things I've talked about up here before. They had strong disciplinarian fathers. That was a really core thing amongst them. I mean, all of them, right? And I'm just like that. But their parents lived out their faith. They saw them like share the gospel of angelized. They were like their parents lived on mission. Now, as I say that, you might be like, what about the single parents? Listen, there's an extraordinary grace on a single mom, right? I mean, God, I believe he's sending all the angels to help you out as you as you seek and rely on him. I want you to know that. And there were amazing stories that came out of the ministry that were like, hey, my dad's in prison and my mom left me when I was, you know, and God just extraordinary grace just did a work. But amongst these sibling groups, I can't deny what I saw in If you want to confuse a child, say that you believe that there's a God and then don't live like it.

Or isolate that belief to like an hour and a half on Sunday and go to a place where you have to pretend like you have it all together. You will confuse the full out of a child. Tell them that you believe there's a heaven in hell and that the difference is somebody trusting in Christ and never share that story. 'Cause their brains will short circuit, they won't be able to connect those dots, right? We have to live consistently at home, verse seven. Since an overseer manages God's household, so he goes from talking about his household to God's household now, he must be blameless as the word again, not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. So he goes from talking about his household to God's household and he speaks to what a believer's life displays to external relationships in their dealings, in the day-to-day, where they go, what others see on them, number two, lead with character. Are you a leader worth following? How do you become a leader worth following? You lead with character, you lead with integrity. And then he lists these five knots and six must-be's. He says not overbearing, that word in the Greek is translates directly, not insisting on their own way. Like arrogant, hard-hearted, controlling.

People ask me sometimes, hey, have you ever been voted down by the elders all the time, all the time? I mean, there's been many times where I'm like, "Hey, we should go right." And they are collectively like, "We think we should go left." So I say, "We're going right." No, I say, "Great." I mean, truly, I'm just like, "I trust the Lord." Like, "I trust the Lord has raised them up." And so if I'm, five brains yielded to the Holy Spirit they're so much better than my single brain, my single mind. And even if it doesn't make sense to me, I trust the process. And so not overbearing, not quick-tempered. James 1.19 says, "Be quick to listen, slow to speak. "It's slow to become angry. "For a person's anger does not bring "about the righteous life that God desires. "Not given to drunkenness, not violent, not greedy "or pursuing dishonest gain." It says, "They're not cutting corners. "They're not cheating on their taxes. "They're not telling a little white lie to make a buck." And then it says, "They must be hospitable. "They use the resources that God has entrusted to them "to serve others and to do ministry. "They love good. "They hate what is evil and they love what is good. "They're not entertained." It says, "No evil thing before your eyes."

It says, "Flee, even the appearance of evil "in 1 Thessalonians 5, they're self-controlled. "They don't do what they feel like. "They don't follow their appetite. "They say, "What would God have me do?" And they do it even when they really, really, really, really, really, really want something. They say, "If God doesn't want it for me, "I'm shutting it down. "I'm not going to entertain that. "They're upright, this idea of blameless, holy, "being sanctified, becoming more and more like Christ. "Disciplined. "They don't do what they feel like they do. "It's necessary." That's the discipline yourself for godliness. That just because it feels difficult doesn't mean it's wrong. Sometimes we have to do hard things to become like Christ. I want you to notice that none of these are talents. None of these are skills, not dynamic speaker, visionary, magnetic personality, leading large companies. It seems that God is way more interested in who we are than what we can do for him. Become holy because he is holy. God measures maturity by ordinary obedience. God can do extraordinary things with ordinary obedience. When we moved here, we moved into a house that we hadn't seen in the daylight. True story was kind of hurried and rushed. And so we took possession of a week.

Once we owned the house, we went in. And it was being built, that's part of the reason. And I knew it was a Christian home builder, a large Christian home builder. And I knew I'd heard of his reputation. And so anyways, we bought this house. And as we lived there, the cracks started to form. And the walls and whatnot. and they're working on it, but as they're working on it, we have to sell the house. And so because we had bought some land that we were going to build on when we moved and that's why we were okay, you know, we knew that it was going to be temporary when we moved in this house. So we're selling the house. So somebody from Harris Creek buys the house and we tell them, hey, there's foundation issues, but it has a foundation warranty and we're working through that and we're going to hand that assignment on to you. And so as they live there, you know, I'm checking in, hey, is everything getting resolved? And as the months went by, they said, you know what, they've stopped responding to our emails or we're not able to contact them. And I thought, oh, no. And so I start doing my homework and I find out this owner or this builder is an elder at his church. And I just thought, what in the world? You know, what in the world? Like this guy needs to be these things. So I call the meeting and he takes it and he drives down here to Waco and we meet with the new homeowner and the builder, the original builder, and they start telling him of their challenges and what they're seeing, what we're doing, to which he says, what do you want me to do about it? To which they say, we want you to buy it back. And I'm thinking, it's not going to do that, but shoot for the stars. And he says, okay, I think that's what I need to do. And I'm sorry that this has caused you trouble. And I think we need to cover all of the fees that you've incurred between now and then. But listen, this, this is not acceptable and I want to make it right. And if that's what I need to do to make it right, then that's what I'm going to do. And I thought, that's God's man. You know, that is at a great cost to him. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And he said, man, that's what I, if that's what I need to do, that's what

I'll do. He keeps his oath even when it hurts. The scripture says, you're God's man, God's woman, when nobody else is looking, listen, here's the biggest problem in the church today, in America. This is, I think, the foundation of the issue of what's happening to the church in America. Is you come into a place like this and a person like me strikes a deal with you, if you will just show up and pay up, then I will shut up and not ask anything of you. Because I don't want to offend you. Typically, they're servicing debt and they look out there when they're preaching, they look out there and they see giving units. That's what you are. You're a giving unit. And they think, well, goodness. And if you leave, I say, well, we just lost a giving unit. This is the conversation that happens in the church all the time, not here. Won't happen here. Okay. I'm not going to water it down for you. I'm going to call us, myself included, to do what that book says no matter what it costs. And if you don't like it and you leave, we'll chase you until you don't let us chase you anymore. Right? That's how that will go down. That's what you're signing up for is we're going to do what the book says. And we're going to teach the whole manifold wisdom of God in everything that he says. And we're going to air to what it says. Well, that's what it said. Well, then we'll just stand before God and say, we just did what you said. And if we missed it, we're sorry, grace upon us, but we're going to do what it says. He must, verse nine, he must hold firmly to listen to this on the tail end of that. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine, as sort of says, sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. So you hold firmly to the truth and encourage with the truth and correct with the truth. All scriptures God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training and righteousness, 2 Timothy 3, 16. This is what the truth that you hold on to. You use it to encourage and you use it to refute those who oppose it. You do not air to one side or the other, not just encouragement, encouragement, not just refute or correction, correction, correction. But you do both of those all the time. Encourage, correct. Encourage, correct. That's the dance with the truth. You got to know the truth though. And so lead from truth. Number three, lead from truth. Lead from truth. Here's the deal. Leading a church. People have lots of opinions. They've watched some TikTok reels and they've learned some things and they think, hey, this is when you should do communion and this is when divorce is allowed and this is when remarriage is allowed and this is who can teach on Sunday and this is who, and people have all kinds of really strong

convictions and opinions on that that are sometimes, sometimes informed by the Scripture. But here's what God in His kindness shows me all the time. It's so easy to sideline quarterback and say, "This is what the music should be like when you don't have to stand before God," and him say, "How did you do with that one? How did you do with that one?" And so you better believe to the best of our ability. We're asking, "Holy Spirit, would you illuminate these truths to us so that we can shepherd your people according to your will, doing only what you've asked us to, not being overbearing, not being harsh, but being full of grace and truth, truth, and love." The number one determiner of how you live your life will be what you believe. The thrust of this text is truth, lived privately, displayed publicly, and held doctrinally. That you have to know what you believe. If you're Hindu and you believe that your ancestors are reincarnated into an animal potentially, and then you don't kill rodents because it may be like a great uncle, that's not meant to be funny. That's true. That is a common practice there. Why? Because your beliefs have consequences, and there's lots of things that you can believe out there. There's lots of faith. There's world religions. There's the cults of the world, and then there's just different ideologies that have crept into lots of faith like mysticism, superstition. You've got to know what you believe, and what you believe is going to impact how you lead. That's what he's saying here to Titus. That's what the Holy Spirit preserved for thousands of years so that we would put it in front of you today, and I would hate for you to leave here, and be like, man, I've got to work harder to be a better leader. No, that is not the application. You need to surrender. It's a surrendering. It's like, God, I can't, but your Holy Spirit inside of me can. And if you don't have the Holy Spirit, then what he says right here in the text, he says, whole firmly to the trustworthy message. What is the trustworthy message? It's not the Bible. It's the gospel. This is what they preached. In the first century, the church, you would show up to church, and they would say there was a guy. He lived a perfect life. He died on a cross. He showed back up three days later. That was a payment for your sins. If you believed he paid for you sins, then you live your life as a sacrifice to him. And this was the message. Week in and week out, you would show up over and over, and one of the apostles would tell you the gospel. Today, 2026, we will have entire days go by where we will not reflect upon the gospel. And he says, whole firmly to this trustworthy message, that it is the gospel, it is Christ himself, his spirit

that regenerates you, that makes you new, that changes how you think and what you do. And he literally does it as you yield and surrender to him. How do you know if you're a believer? How do you know if you love God, you know God? You ever heard the proof is in the pudding? The proof is in the prayer. What do you do when no one's looking? There's a book who you are when no one's looking by Bill Hibles. If you don't know Pastor Bill Hibles, he has probably had more influence on the modern church in America than any other pastor who's lived in your lifetime. Then he fell tragically, morally and publicly, came out that he was having an affair with an assistant. And you say, "Man, why would you shame him in that way?" No, it's public knowledge, and I promise you that I am confident that he wants us to learn all we can from his mistake. I read a book often. I listen to it all the time, "Soul Keeping" by John Orberg. John Orberg references two pastors as positive examples in that book, "Philippiancy and Bill Hibles." Both have fallen. Both have had terrible moral failures. What are you going to do to make sure you finish this race? That you love Jesus more tomorrow than you did today? That you love Jesus more next year than you did today because you're drifting always to the cross or away from it. If what you believe never changes how you live, something has gone wrong. If what you believe never changes how you live, So in summary, how do you become a leader? Others should follow you one, lead well at home, two, lead with character, and three, lead from truth. Sometimes I feel, I don't, I'm afraid it's gonna feel petty, and I really don't want for it to feel petty, but I'm just gonna wrestle out loud with you if I may. Sometimes I feel like people, people, you know, the internet or whatever, people, sometimes I feel like people

are just waiting for me to fail. You know, like just, you fit the criteria. You know, another guy, another one, you know, another list, you know, Philip Yancey, Bill Hywell's, Carl Lance, whoever it is, right? We run scared, like, oh, and I get it. I'm kind of flashy, you know, and I travel a lot, speak a lot, have some followers. This isn't where I tell you, I'm gonna fail in case you're feeling nervous in your seat or something. That's not what's coming. Really the opposite. Really the opposite, honestly, right now, and I understand, pride goes before the fall, I have nothing to be prideful and accept the grace of God in this Holy Spirit. But two days ago, I celebrated 22 years of marriage. And I'll just tell you, I've never loved in all sincerity. Like, I have never loved my wife more. I've never been more attracted to her. Our marriage, we've never laughed as much as we do in the season, which is true. I have never enjoyed my children more than I do right now. Miss one who's out of the nest dearly,

grieve the other two slowly moving towards that finish line. And man, we love Jesus. And we love celebrating Jesus and what he's doing. Some, you know, people have asked me, like, why don't you just travel and speak? It's like, because the local church is the hope of the world. If I don't ever want to do anything detached from the local expression of the body of Christ, I love what God is doing here. My favorite place to teach from the scriptures is right here. And I'm so desperate to want to finish well. And you might say, well, how are you gonna make sure you do it? Well, every single week I meet with two guys that ask me, how did you feed your soul? How did you feed others? How did you feed your flesh? And I answer in great detail, one praise for me, and then he goes. And then the next one, praise, and the next one goes. And that's how we spend our time. We're asking you that that's how you spend your time. And then at a separate meeting every single week, I sit down with six guys who look at everywhere I'm going, everything I'm doing, they examine the health of the staff, the health of our church. We talk through the challenges. They ask lots of hard questions. They know what I make, what I give,

what I spend, all of my DMs go to my wife's phone. You know, it's like I'm doing everything I can to safeguard this. Pray for your leaders, man. So your unique target, scripture seems to think so. Pray for your leaders. Pray they would hear from God. Pray, like if there's something out there that you disagree with, like pray like crazy, the Lord would bring unity and change one of our hearts, you know? It doesn't make sense that we would know the same God of the same spirit and walk in disagreement. But when I got here, Smelders rolled off over the years and we said we're gonna add some, and we are. And the first step to that is we believe we found one that we would love to bring in. And so I want to present his name to you and then you pray about that for the next few weeks and assuming that none of you come forward, then we'll bring he and his family up here and announce him as the new elder. But his name is John Eckert. so I'm going to read it because I don't want to mess it up. Baylor Center for School Leadership always say of Baylor Center for School Leadership. His, if you look at that picture, his son Ben Eckert married Aaron and they live in Houston and his daughters Sarah and Grace attend the greatest university on earth, Baylor. And he's been married to Carolyn for 28 years. I know John well. He's my across the street neighbor. And if you want me to tell you more about him, I've made a list and I'll just tell you quickly. He's not overbearing. He's not quick-tempered. He's not given to drunkenness. He's not violent. He's not greedy. He is hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. And that's who he is. And so, pray with us just as that's a really big decision. And so would you guys just give me

a head nod if you commit to praying over that for the next several weeks and praying for the leaders here? Just give me a head nod so I know you're in it. One of you is not in it. We'll talk afterwards. But yeah, it's a big deal. And so, guys, thank you. Thank you for letting us serve you in this way. And I'm reminded as we dive into this new book, how important it is. And so, Father, we just we ask you for your help, for extra grace to do all you've asked us to do. Thank you for your son Jesus Christ who makes us new. And I know that anytime someone is selected for anything, there's like, what about me? I just, Lord, I pray that every single person in this room would meet those requirements, that that's what you would do in our church, that every single one of us would meet those requirements. And I pray that those that you entrust the position of leadership, like Jesus, who said, "I did not come to be served but to serve and to give my life as ransom for many," that that would mark our leadership, that we would be the chief servants of your local church here. Would you continue, God, because you have, but would you continue to pour out grace and favor on this place? Protect us from all evil and use us for your good. In the name of Jesus, amen. At some point in that message, there may have been something that struck a chord. Or maybe you have a prodigal. I'm going to invite you forward for prayer. That's going to take courage, it always does. But you know, like the Holy Spirit is probably like, hey, you should go get prayer. Nobody, everybody's going to be worshiping. They're not going to be paying attention to you getting prayer. So just make that normal. Would you lead? Would you lead as the right word? Would you lead us in that way by coming forward for prayer now? Stand and let's sing.