Blaze a Trail

Well, take your Bibles this morning and go to 1 Timothy chapter 4. Would you do that? 1 Timothy chapter 4. It's a particular joy and an honor for me to be here on this momentous day and this pastor, Chris's life and in Grace Life Church of Brookhaven. I couldn't remember Chris when we exactly connected. I know you kind of connected us before you and I talked, but it's a joy brother. It is a joy and an honor to have you as a part of our wider family to exhort and encourage and sharpen each other. That we might be a part of building true churches for the glory of God. The centerpiece of God's purposes and God's glory is His local churches.

That's just emphatically clear in Scripture. Now when we get to the eternal state and we're all glorified, then it's going to be one great universal glorified church. But for now in time and space history, the centerpiece of all that God's doing to fulfill His will and to glorify His own name is His local churches. So the local church is worth everything. I begin preaching through 1 and 2 Timothy a couple of years ago, I guess it is now. When I came to this text, I thought, man, this is really a good text to exhort and honor pastors through. So first of all, I want to commend you for having this special day to honor your pastor.

The Bible says give honor to whom honor is due. And the Bible in the New American Standard says four basic things about how you view your pastor. You're to love him, you're to honor him, you're to hold him in high steam and you're to respect him. That's powerful stuff. And you show that spirit by doing that today. So we rejoice in God's goodness and the faithfulness of this dear man and his sweet wife and these two girls that are just growing up, have grown up now, I guess. Well, they need to keep maturing, I guess, but they're beautiful girls and what a blessing they are to the family too.

Look at 1 Timothy 4 now, beginning in verse 11, and we'll go through verse 16. All right, verse 11, 1 Timothy 4, "Prescribe and teach these things. Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. Show yourself an example of those who believe. Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching. Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you which was bestowed upon you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. Take pains with these things. Be absorbed in them so that your progress may be evident to all.

Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. Persevere in these things, for as you do this, you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you." I've entitled this exposition, "Blaze a Trail," because that's basically what Paul is telling Timothy here. He's saying, "Timothy, really pastoring the church, that is to build a true church, or what we might call a spiritually, biblically healthy church, is like blazing a trail. Matter of fact, Timothy here is the appointed pastor for this church. This is the church of Ephesus. Now, some may argue he wasn't technically a pastor.

Well, that's true, but he's functioning as the pastor for now. And so Paul's instructed this church to Timothy, and Paul is continuing to guide him through this process. Actually, first and second Timothy, these two letters in our Bible are written to guide Timothy in the quest of pastoring a biblically spiritually healthy true church. And there's a lot to do as you read through these books. There's a lot of things to get organized, to get an order. Some of the ladies were out of hand, some of the men need to be exhorted on the other hand. Lots of stuff that just needed to get put in place. And Paul knew it was going to be a tough job.

So actually, when you have first and second Timothy, you have a mentoring manual for those pastors who want to build true churches for the glory of God. But there will be challenges, and there will be difficulties. Look at it in verse 15, because in verse 15, I'm confident you have a summary of all that Paul is saying in this section. And matter of fact, I think you have a summary of basically first and second Timothy. And that is the phrase in verse 15, where he says, take pains with these things, be exhorted in them. Here's the phrase, so that your progress may be evident to all. W.E.

Vines, the great scholar says the word progress originally meant in this day to blaze a trail. The idea of just starting and cutting out a path and making a way. It speaks of the courage you're going to need and the wisdom you're going to need to keep this thing going on. It also came to mean the idea of taking a heated piece of iron and beating it out to elongate it, make it progress, if you will. Both of those images, blazing a trail through a jungle, or beating out a piece of iron pictures, the kind of labor and work and courage and intensity and steadfastness you're going to have, or have to have to build a true church.

I think in my mind, maybe of a tour group in the Congo jungle and they have a young tour guide and a couple of hours into the tour, he's completely lost his way. He doesn't know where the trail is. And they come to a little opening there in the jungle and the people are beginning to be fearful and bewildered and they're kind of sitting around and thinking, what are we going to do? We're lost. But the young tour guide opened his backpack and he got out his compass. And he knew that no matter where he was in that region of the Congo, if he goes west, he'll come to a road that will take him out. So he takes out his compass and he finds west.

Then out of his backpack he takes a machete. Then he takes out a second machete and he takes a big buoy knife and he straps it on his waist. He finds where west is and he just goes into a wall of vegetation and he starts slashing and cutting and chopping and throwing that thunderbrush away, slashing and cutting and chopping. And those in his tour guide will say, this guy's crazy. We don't know where we are. We're lost. And he just starts cutting through the jungle. What is he doing? They were skeptical. They were critical. They were fearful. About an hour past and one of the guys looked up and said, well, you know what? He's staying with it.

He's making some progress. I think I'll go help him. So he went up and said, give me one of those machetes and I'll cut with you. Another hour past, another man joined in and said, well, we got to try something. I'll follow you too. I don't know if this is going to work. I don't know if you're on the right track. You see, they didn't have the compass. He had the compass. He knew it was the right direction. A couple more hours past and most of the group were following him down there and trying to help in every way they could and before dark, they find the road and find their way out.

That's a picture of a pastor pastoring a church, especially taking it from a very shallow or infantile stage and growing that church up to some maturity. He just has to take the compass and say, this is where we go. And he has to understand that even good folks at the beginning don't know whether or not to follow him because they've never seen a true church before. They've never seen a biblically healthy church. And so it looks straight. They're not necessarily against it, but the Chris, they're just not sure about it. And the pastor has to keep chopping and slashing and fighting.

He has to go with wisdom and courage and blaze a trail and build a true church for the glory of God. This man, Chris has done that in this church. He has blazed a trail with wisdom and courage for the glory of God. Let's unpack this sum, if you will. First of all, we need to blaze a trail with courage and wisdom by continually calling the church to sound doctrine and godliness. That's the context here, by continually calling the church to sound doctrine and godliness. Matter of fact, this refers back, I think, to an earlier passage back up in verse six, if you will, of the same chapter.

He says there, "In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of sound doctrine which you have been following." Brothers and sisters, doctrine just means teaching. Holding to sound doctrine is a battle. Holding to sound doctrine in the church takes courage. There'll be so many who don't want that. Matter of fact, in our Baptists and evangelical churches today, there are more people, at least on our church roles, who will support you in shallow or false doctrine than there are who will support you in sound doctrine.

That's why you're blazing a trail, brother, and just chopping away because it's tough and you have to go it alone at the first. You know there's a real difference between sound doctrine, that is that doctrine which was once for all delivered to the saints and following passing fads and all the floating allurements that Satan drifts by the church door. And then in verse eight, he talks about something else here.

"For bodily discipline is of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things since it holds the promise for this life and for the life to come." So in the context of this whole chapter, he talks to Timothy about hold to sound doctrine, hold to sound doctrine and hold to godliness. And a faithful pastor who's blazing a trail to be the true church will be one who continually devotes himself to sound doctrine and to godliness. Thinking about godliness for just a moment, he talks about spiritual discipline is of greatest value. He said, "Body discipline is of little profit, not of no profit.

Bodily discipline is of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things." Matter of fact, this is good for this life and it certainly adds up and is valuable for the life to come. It's valuable for all that we're about. Now here's what you'll find out if you're pastoring a church and you stay with sound doctrine and you do not drift from it and you keep calling the church to godliness and holy living, you'll find out the spiritually mature in the church will not only not mind this reminder, they want this reminder.

They're looking, "Pastor, tell me again." I tell my people that when you got saved, you didn't repent, you became a repenter. You started repenting. Look, you come to church every week because you leak every week. The godliness that you recommitted yourself to, the things you reaffirmed in your heart, well as the week went on, you slipped and you slid some. We're not perfect yet, amen? We're not fully sanctified yet, but we come to church so the man of God can call us again back to sound doctrine and godliness. A spiritual man says, "That's what I want." You know what? If you're a spiritual man, you don't trust yourself.

You want somebody to rattle your cage a little bit, shake you a little bit on Sunday and there you repent again. If you come to church and had repented some, you hadn't worshipped. You see, repentance is central to worship because God in every way is immeasurably superior to us. So in every way we fall short of Him. So we're constantly repenting saying, "Lord, help me be more like you." Well, pastors are supposed to, with courage and wisdom, blaze a trail by continually calling the church the sound doctrine and the godliness.

I believe the Grace Life Church of Brookhaven is that kind of church and that's because God's given you a leader who's committed to those truths, sound doctrine and the godliness. Number two, in the context of this phrase that I'm building off of, to blaze a trail, we need to blaze a trail with wisdom and with courage by fighting hard against savage wolves. By fighting hard against savage wolves, if you just did a perusal of 1 and 2 Timothy, well let's expand that for that. If you did a perusal of the Apostle Paul's letters, you'll find an abundance.

You'd almost say a redundancy of Paul charging churches to guard against false teachers, to guard against false doctrine, to guard against those who would like to come in and undermine the integrity of the church and draw the church away after something that's not solid or sound. The pastor has to have courage and wisdom to continually fight the savage wolves. But what's the context here? Do you remember when Paul was finishing up his ministry, he knew he would be in prison soon, and he calls together the Ephesian elders, that's this church, and he sits the Ephesian elders down.

You know one of the last things he says to them, Acts 20, 29 and 30, one of the last things Paul says to the leaders of this church, this is before Timothy took charge of it. He said, "When I depart," here's Paul's words, "savage wolves will come in and try to ruin this church." Now I'm amplifying, but that's what he's saying.

He says to not only that, "From amongst yourselves some will rise up, opposing the truth and trying to draw the disciples away after them." And so that's why now when he writes to Timothy, he's constantly telling him, "Stay faithful, be vigilant." If you look at the balance of teaching in 1 and 2 Timothy, he's charging him solemnly to put down false teaching and false doctrine. I'm telling you, if you're going to be a pastor who's faithful to what God calls you to do, it takes a lot of wisdom and a lot of courage to continually fight the savage wolves. And you want to be honest about this whole thing?

All of us have at least a little savage wolf in us. That's why we have to repent a lot, amen? But sometimes Chris, there are folks who are not just repenting of the savage, they are savage wolves. It's who they are. They're sent by Satan to try to ruin the church. And it's your job, it's my job to guard the sheep from the savage wolves. So that's the context.

Paul said, "When I leave, it's going to get rough and we need somebody to fight." Now in that context, look at verse 12 of our text, "Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe." In other words, Timothy, as you're taking charges, you're making these stands, as you're guarding the church, they're going to try to undermine you. And one of the things, Timothy, they'll try to hang their hat on is, "He's too young. He's too inexperienced. He didn't have the maturity.

You don't need to follow that guy." He said, "Paul says, 'Timothy, don't let him do it.'" Now Timothy had several things that savage wolves would try to play upon to undermine his credibility. First of all, he was really not gifted like Paul. His gifts were more of a helper, of an associate. Paul was more of a leader, probably more bold. He was kind of a timid soul. In addition to that, Timothy had some physical and emotional infirmities or weaknesses that he had to deal with. You know, Paul says, "Now Timothy, take some wine for your stomach and your mini-elments." So they could say, "He's not strong. He's sickly.

He's not bold or confident in his personality." And so Paul is trying to undergird Timothy and, "Stand up, Timothy. Stay strong, Timothy. You've got to continually fight those savage wolves so that the church might remain anchored in truth." You might ask, "Well, why does God put a man like Timothy?" Godly man for sure, but he's just not perfect. You know what I've learned through the years? God picked some of the weakest vessels to pastor his churches because then God gets the glory because it has to be God's power because that man couldn't do it. It's a neat thing.

And by the way, Paul didn't have the luxury of appointing seasoned, mature men into these church plans. I mean, Timothy was the best he had. Timothy wasn't bad, but it's the best he had. But Timothy did have this. He was discipled by Paul. He was still under the instruction. That's first and second Timothy. And accountability to the apostle Paul. And Timothy did have a godliness. We see that in verse 12, that stuck out, or if you would, was a testimony of his trueness and his faithfulness.

He says, "But rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example." I think what Paul's saying is that's who you are and I keep on being that kind of man. Well, Timothy, they'll try to undermine you, but if you'll keep blazing the trail, you'll keep being stalwart and faithful. There are those who love me and they'll see in your life a good example of faithfulness and they will start to follow you. So the faithful pastor being a true church needs to blaze a trail for the glory of God. He needs to blaze a trail standing firm on sound doctrine and godliness.

He needs to blaze the trail by with wisdom and courage standing against those savage wolves. Reminds me of a, I read a book a while back and the book was about the acquisition of Texas. And Sam Houston was a prominent figure in that book. And Sam Houston was a Tennessean and in his early years as a soldier, he distinguished himself. It became a favorite of General Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson went on to become president and Sam Houston went on to become governor of Tennessee and later the commander of the Army of Texas. But at this point, he's just a young man in the Army.

And the story is told, historians document that the red stick Indians had massacred a fort in Alabama and General Jackson was going to pay them back. So he sent his troops to fight the red sticks and that battle with the red stick, Sam Houston rushes forward with great valor and courage, charges the line of the red stick Indians. He takes an arrow to his thigh. He's got an arrow sticking out of his leg. The soldiers randomly said he tried to pull it out once it wouldn't come out. Try it again and pull it out, it wouldn't come out. Tried a third time it wouldn't cut out, so he just broke it off.

He kept fighting on and then took a mini ball to his shoulder. Well, later that night the surgeon, the Army surgeon was operating on Sam Houston and he said, "I'm not even going to worry about taking all of that out of his shoulder. There's no need to put his body through that much trauma. He'll never live through the night." But he did. Brother Chris and faithful pastors who are trying to be courageous and wise and blaze a trail, there are days when they wonder, "Am I going to make it? Are we going to survive?" But you do. You know how in the ministry how you survive when you think you're not going to survive? You do the next thing.

You say, "Well, I'm preaching Sunday so I'm going to get ready to preach. No matter what's going on, I'm going to get in that pulpit and preach again Sunday." You have to have that kind of courage. Number three, the pastor who's going to build a true church needs to blaze a trail with courage and wisdom by holding to the priority of preaching the Word. By holding to the priority of preaching the Word. Three thoughts here from this text about that. First of all, there's something of a pattern of how we preach the Word. Look at there in verse 13, a pattern.

"How shall I come give attention to the public reading of Scripture to exhortation and teaching?" Notice here he says, "The public reading of Scripture." But the truth is the word "public" is not in the original manuscripts. The word "public" was added by the interpreters, the translators, for understanding. So religious says, "Give attention to reading the Scriptures." I think that means study because Paul's already told Timothy that.

I will tell him that and I'm sure had many times earlier where he says, "Study to show yourself to prove unto God a workman that does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth." So the first thing a pastor's got to be committed to is studying the Word of God. You think, "Well, why does that take courage and strength and wisdom?" It takes a lot of it, but you know why? Because even good church members don't understand that. Even good, godly church members don't appreciate that. The amount of hours a pastor needs to muse on to meditate. You know, the old Hebrew word to meditate is the word where a cow chews the cud.

A little bit graphic, but she burps it back up and she chews on it and swallows it back down again. The pastor needs to muse on and meditate on that word and let it impact him. That takes T-I-M-E. Other folks can visit sick folks. If you've got a gift of mercy, you're great at visiting sick folks. Other folks can lead things if you have the gift of leadership or can organize something. You have the gift of administration, but only the pastor's called to preach the Word. A pastor has to have courage and wisdom to stay at that task and spend those hours in the study.

The text says, "Pay attention to reading." I think it's the idea of studying the Word. I had a real battle in my church early on. I come from the kind of church and we were a large church. The idea was that the pastor is involved in everybody's life. He's involved in everything that goes on. I learned early on that I had to learn to practice purposeful neglect. When I set aside hours to study and get ready to preach, I would just kindly say to everything else, "I can't come do that.

I can attend to that." My men began to pick up on this and they said, "We love the way you preach when you've had real time to dig into the Word and meditate on the text. It just comes alive in your soul." So pastor, we're going to start taking care of everything else. You pray, you study, and you preach the Word. We have other folks that can do other things, but only you are our preaching pastor. Brother Chris is a man who has been committed with wisdom and courage to make a priority of studying to preach the Word. In this pattern, notice he amplifies it out.

Not just the reading, which at least includes the study of the Word, but to exhortation, he says. Exhortation is to command, to demand a change. Brother Chris, that's where the pastor comes in. We don't just get up here and unfold the text and do a great historical, mathematical, contextual exposition of the text. That's good, but then you take it and you apply it to the church. You tell them, "Now, here's where we are. Now, you need to change this. You need to adjust that. You need to look at this differently. You need to quit thinking this way and start thinking that way." That's exhortation.

Taking the truth of the text and using it for that local church. Exhortation. Then the last thing he says in this text is teaching. That has the idea of doctrine. That's what the scholars tell us. In other words, you take all of your exhortations to the church out of the sound biblical doctrine that you hold. Now, here's one thing that's interesting. It's near impossible to really separate teaching from exhortation. Doctrine and exhortation, they just mingle together. When you're studying doctrine or teaching doctrine, you're ought to be exhorting the people to adhere to that doctrine. That's what God has called us to do.

Secondly, not only a pattern to the priority of your preaching, but notice the gift and the calling. Look at verse 14, if you will. "Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance and the laying on the hands of the presbytery." When you use the word spiritual gift, it's the great word charisma. It means the unique spiritual enabling God has given you uniquely, Timothy. God gives a preaching pastor a unique spiritual gifting to preach. It's not just a human gifting of communication or charisma or personality. It's a God spiritually empowered giftedness.

Matter of fact, every single Christian has a spiritual gift cocktail. There's a mixture of gifts everyone's given, but the pastor gets a unique gift of preaching and teaching, and that's what he's referring to here. He goes on with some things we don't need to elaborate on. He said these things were pointed out to you through prophetic utterance. My understanding is that the elders who lay on you were giving the utterance that they affirmed that God had indeed given you this gift and called you to this role.

Then they laid hands on Timothy and prayed for him, in effect saying, "We see this gift and now we're asking God to especially empower you." Notice here the great height and importance God puts on the local church. When the local church in effect ordains a man to ministry, they're saying, "We agree with God that there is a giftedness this man has has. There's a calling on this man's life, and now we're together affirming that, giving our local churches blessing to that, and asking God to use him in a powerful way for the building of the church, for the glory of God." Here's what he's saying, "Timothy, you can't back up.

Timothy, you can't quit. Timothy, you got to keep studying. I don't care what the opposition's like. I don't care how difficult some people are. I don't care how they're scheming and lying and undermining your ministry. Timothy, keep reading. Keep studying. Keep holding the sound doctrine and keep preaching it and exhorting the people. Keep on keeping on." There were years, I'm not exaggerating, years in my 41 year ministry there at Grace Life Church when the opposition, and we're talking hundreds of people opposing me.

I kind of felt like John Piper said when he first took the church in Bethlehem, Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minnesota, he said there were three people that sat down front that hated me. He said, and I told him one day, he said, "I want y'all to listen to me. I'm going to out pray you, I'm going to out love you, and I'm going to outlive you." And that's what I did at Grace Life of the Shalls. Everybody there loves me now. Hard to believe, but they do. That's God's strength in their lives, believe it or not. But that's not the way it was at the beginning. Matter of fact, we've lost over 600 active members in my first years of the pastor there.

You know what I did? I kept reading, kept studying, kept holding the sound doctrine, and kept preaching. You know what that is? That's blazing betrayal. That's getting that machete and that knife and cutting and slashing and throwing away the under, and just keep on going. Keep on going. Well, he talked about the pattern, Timothy. Here's the pattern of the way you're to preach. Timothy, here's the gifting and calling you have. Don't minimize that. That's important because you can't quit what you didn't start. The pastor's got to say, "God called me to do this, so I can't quit.

If they run me off, I'll just go out on the street and preach." Until as enough people get saved, we'll start another church. Amen? You can't stop what you didn't start. So Timothy, God called you and God gets you to keep on doing what you're supposed to do. And thirdly, the prominence. Rather, I say the preeminence of preaching. Let me say that again. The preeminence of preaching. Brothers and sisters, you can have the most unbelievably successful, quote, end of quote, student ministry in Mississippi. You have the most talented, brilliant, creative children's program in Mississippi.

You have the most impacting, emotion-stirring women's program in the state of Mississippi. And I could go on and on. But nothing is really blessed to God if the preaching of the Word is not right. Everything depends upon that because see, you don't know how to do children's work unless this Word is preached and you know what the truths are that children's ministry is based on. You don't know how to do student work unless you go to the book and find out what student work is supposed to be based upon. And on and on and on, we could go. The preaching of the Word is the foundation of the health of a local church.

You see, while the presence of a preaching pastor is not essential for the existence of a church, a preaching pastor is essential for the health of the church. I mean, some people could get saved somewhere and we've run into many of them in our ministry. Five, six families got converted, started studying the Bible and actually started a church. But then later God gave them a pastor so they could grow and be healthy and be true to what God called them to do. It's preeminent. You see, true preaching does inestimable good, but false preaching does inestimable evil.

And by the way, what we needed our day is discernment because a lot of people are calling good preaching was not preaching at all. The Joel Osteen's of the world who are false teachers bringing false preaching. It's more pop psychology with a little moraine of the Bible thrown around here and there instead of preaching the Word. Of all the spiritual disciplines and duties in the local church, preaching, the listen and the proper hearing of the preaching. Do you understand when you come to church here to work hard at hearing the preaching of the Word?

Paul tells Timothy later, there'll be that day when they will not endure, Bible word, endure sound doctrine. In other words, they'll go tired of it. They won't want to hear it. They don't want to come to church and be disciplined and alert and be a repinter. Oh, teach me something funny. Tell me something amusing. Make me happy this week. You just need to stay at the club where you were Saturday night. Church is not for that. We're not to be like the world. We're to be like God. And we're to begin, we're to come to church to help ourselves learn to love God and learn to love what God loves.

You're to go to bed on Saturday night getting ready for the preaching of the Word Sunday morning so that you can hear receiving the preaching is important as it is preparing to do the preaching. That is something in verse 15. He's tells Timothy in that immediate context, take pains with this, take pains with what? Your preaching ministry. And it says, be absorbed in those things. Literally it means to immerse yourself in this. Brother Chris, it means just drown yourself in that ministry. You know what? That's going to take some courage and wisdom because the world demands pastor do everything but that.

Chris could go out here and march for social justice and helping the poor. And that's a good ministry, by the way. Churches do some of that, but you'll never get all the poor help and you'll never get all the fallen world just. And there's times when you have to say no to even really good things and make sure you're being absorbed in what God said you're to be absorbed in. I want to say something to you. But I don't want to chase this rabbit too far because I'll never get back home. If Satan can get you addressing every evil of a fallen ungodly world, he will keep you from ever getting back to the true ministry God's called you to.

Because there's always going to be evils. There's always going to be injustices. There's always going to be the oppressed. Yes, we should speak for them. Yes, we defend them. Of course. Are you listening to me? God didn't call Brother Chris in this church to fix this world. He called Brother Chris to build the church in this world. And that's the best way to help fix the world. Are you with me? But always in that flow, in that order. Be immersed in these things. And then he says in verse 15, "And your progress, your trailblazing will be evident." Oh, people start saying, "This guy believes it. This guy's doing it right.

This guy going alone if he has to. And I tell you what, I think I'll follow him." That's what he's saying to Timothy. He said, "Your blazing betrayal will be known to all when Brother Chris came to know the Baptist." I preached there. Little smaller crowd than this morning. Brother Chris came there and he had some strong experience under his belt. He reminds me a lot of myself in those early years when you're just trying to learn. I tell Brother Chris, so many of us in our early pastor ministry, we know what's wrong, but we don't know what's right yet. And you keep learning, "Well, what does it look like?

If this is all flesh and carnal and worldly, then what does the real thing look like?" That should be your goal is we want to be able to true church so that young pastors can look at us and say, "They're not perfect, but that's what it looks like." Be a good model and a good example. But Chris came to know the Baptist and he inherited a mixed multitude. There were those there who had no heart and no desire for a glory of God focused Christ honoring Bible saturated ministry. No heart at all for it. I'm not saying they were always vocally opposing, but they just weren't for it.

And he had to put his nose to the grindstone and go forward and continue to blaze the trail for the glory of God. And now what has happened? God has brought people who do want that. And I see the church growing and being blessed. Look at this building. I remember when we rode around town and we were talking about, "Would God let us use that building one day?" Well, he has. God puts the pieces together. In one sense, you could say, "Brother Chris came to his first church and found himself in a jungle." And he opened up his backpack. He said, "Where's my compass? That'll tell me what to do.

That'll tell me which way to go right there." Oh, I got all kinds of voices and opinions, but I'm going to trust this compass right here. He pulled one machete out of his backpack. You know what that machete had written on it? Preach the word. He pulled another machete out of his backpack. You know what was written on that one? Trust the spirit's power. He had a big old buoy knife on his hip. You know what was written on that buoy knife? Bible methods only. In other words, no worldly fads gimmicks our amusements. Bible methods only. Preach the word. Trust the power of the spirit. Bible methods only. Here's my compass. I'm going on.

I'm cutting the trail. You can come with me or not, but this is where I'm going. Number four, last thought. What a blaze of trail with courage and wisdom by being balanced and taking care of yourself. Now, I mean the pastor, and that's true for all of us, but the pastor has to learn to take care of himself. Look what he says in verse 16 here, the first phrase, "Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching." Now, most scholars say, well, that talks about Timothy playing close attention to his own godliness and his own walk, but that includes something very important. That is what Paul brought out to Timothy numerous times.

You better learn to take care of yourself, Timothy. That is your emotional well-being and your physical well-being. Timothy, that's a part of it. That's important as you're blazing a trail to build a true church. Matter of fact, that phrase is in the present active, "Keep on keeping on taking care of yourself and looking after your teaching." Now, if you say, well, this only means Timothy ought to just live right. Well, he's already addressed that up in verse 12. I think it would make better sense to think that he's not being redundant.

He's mentioning something else, especially since Paul often exhorted Timothy about his body and his health and resting and taking care of himself. So, Timothy, just as you're to give yourself diligently to sound doctrine, Spirit anointed preaching, and blazing a trail in those ways, also as a pattern of life, keep on looking after your physical, mental, and emotional constitution if you want to have a long, effective, and blessed ministry. Chris, that's a word for you, brother. I charge you to do what I'm convinced this takes a saying, take care of yourself. Go deer hunting, son. Take some time off.

You know, my church gave me six months off for my 40th anniversary. Six months off, they said, you can't do nothing. You're not coming up here, you're not hearing about the prayer list, you're not doing anything. For six months, just chill out. I thought, this is what I do. And so, it's really kind of like a punishment in a way because I love the church. But they recognize, no, we want another good 20 years out of you. And honestly, 20 or so years ago, my men began to give me a month off in July. And they said, what we found out is when you get some down time and you get refreshed, you preach like a house on fire next time you come in here.

We love it. We want you to stay replenished and refreshed. Brothers and sisters, true biblical pastel ministry puts a toll and a drain on a man's constitution like nothing else. Now, here's what I mean. If you're really called to God, you care deeply about the souls of men. And think about it, that the eternal souls of men in God's providence are somewhat dependent upon your ministry. It's heavy. It's heavy. You say, wait a minute, I've worked hard for all those years. I don't get that kind of time off. Yes, and your job in life's important, but your job in life, the eternal souls of men don't rest upon it like it does the pastor.

You got to understand what's on the line. And I know you have that spirit, but Chris and all pastors even to blaze a trail in helping the church understand they got to have some downtime. If you're going to be at year 41, like I am with vigor and passion and energy and still faithful in ministry. I learned early on in minister, brother Chris, I'd see these pastors, good guys, good brothers. They bid 20, 30 years in the pastorate and they quit. No, they were still in their pastorate, but they quit. They quit blazing a trail. It was just too hard because they were doing so many other things. The Bible didn't prescribe for them to do.

So when it came to studying and preaching, they didn't have time to do that well. So they quit at the things that really matter and Satan's behind every bit of that nonsense. So with courage and with wisdom, blaze a trail to be balanced and look after yourself. So as you go forward in ministry, you remember Sam Houston talked about him earlier after that battle with the red stick Indians, you know, where he got the arrow in his thigh and a mini ball in his shoulder. He did live. He recovered enough that he could travel, but very weakened.

He traveled to Washington DC only to find out to utter despair dismay that the British had invaded our country. They'd burned our capital and they had occupied Washington DC. And Sam Houston said, "Here I am. I love my country more than anything and my country needs me now more than ever, but I'm too weak to do anything about it." And historians tell us that that changed Sam Houston forever. He determined after that he couldn't just run forward with valor and courage. He had to balance his valor and courage with wisdom to know when to give of his energies, when to fight and when to back off.

He became the commander of the army of Texas and Santa Ana, the Mexican general was threatening to sweep across that region and claim it all for Mexico. Well, Sam Houston called down to the Alamo, not telephone. They didn't have those. Sent a message to David Crockett, William Travis, Jim Bowie said, "Guys, it's a lost cause. Give up the animal. You can't defend it. If I bring my troops, we can't defend it. We will not win. Abandon the Alamo." They didn't do it. You know the history. Almost every single man at the Alamo lost his life fighting against Santa Ana's troops.

After that, Sam Houston got his army of Texas and began marching south, close to Santa Sita, and Santa Ana began marching his troops north. And right when Santa Ana located Sam Houston's army of Texas, Sam Houston went in retreat and they retreated several miles back. The next couple of days Santa Ana marched his army toward him again. They got close and Sam Houston retreated again. This happened time after time after time. Santa Ana's troops would march forward to Sam Houston and take the army of Texas and retreat again. His men became disgruntled and said, "You're a coward. They killed our brothers at the Alamo.

Let's fight these guys." They said, "No, we're not." Finally, an advanced scout returned back to Sam Houston and told Sam the news he'd been waiting to hear. Santa Ana has divided his army into two halves. Sam Houston found a beautiful spot there that was the perfect spot to draw a line in the sand. He said, "Okay, men, today is the day we fight." And so they battled that one half of Santa Ana's army and defeated them in 18 minutes. Sam Houston was wise. He had wisdom. He still had his courage, but now he had wisdom. He knew if he just took on that army, he would lose everything. He got them where he wanted them, then he fought them.

Sam Houston's laying under a tree, wounded again in the battle. He hears a ruckus and his men are shouting and cursing and bringing a man forward. He said, "General Houston, here's Santa Ana. Let's hang him. Let's kill him." Sam Houston said, "Oh, no. And alive Santa Ana is better than a dead Santa Ana." He said, "You won't Santa Ana. I want Texas." He had Santa Ana alive to sign the treaty, surrendering all the region of Texas to those Texans. Later it became a state, of course. Then alive Santa Ana went to Washington, D.C. and testified before our government. I've given all that property to the Texans.

He went to Mexico to testify to his own government and said, "I've surrendered all that region to the Texans. It's no longer Mexico's land." You see, Sam Houston always had the courage, but now he had wisdom. That's basically what Paul's telling Timothy. Timothy, you're going to have to fight. And in looking after yourself in other ways, you'll have wisdom to know when to fight and how to fight. A bulldog can whip the skunk, but it's not worth the fight. A godly pastor's got to know when it's wise to retreat and fight on another day. And by the way, some things just kind of burn themselves out.

As your church matures, stuff just kind of can burn itself out. I had a man join my church, and I don't want to belabor this, and he had been the head of a large corporation in another state, very wealthy, retired at like 35, me and heir. He joined some of my church. He went there a few months, and he began talking to some of my staff about, "Do you think Brother Jeff's right doing this and this? Or do you think Brother Jeff's right doing it?" He started undermining. And quickly my staff said, "We don't do that here. You've got a problem with the Jeff. You make a meeting with Brother Jeff.

I don't listen to stuff like that." He tried it a couple more times, and then he told our church, he said, "I believe God's calling me to another church." I thought, "Well, I don't think it's God, but you need to go to another church." What I'm saying, it kind of put itself out. Wisdom lets you know when to back up and like Sam Houston, when to charge forward. Not only is this Brother Chris a man worthy of honoring because he has flat blazed a trail for the glory of God in building this church. But all of you deserve commendation. Can I just charge you, Grace Life Church of Brookhaven, Mississippi, keep on keeping on.

You can't stop what you didn't start. This is God's church so that you might be a model and an example to other guys out there who need to blaze a trail and build a true church for the glory of God. All of God's people said, "Amen." Let me pray for us, all right?