Flee Youthful Lusts #2

All right. So this morning, we're going to be continuing in our study of 1 Timothy chapter 2. We started a new section the last couple of verses of this chapter, verses 22 to 26. Last week, we focused primarily on verse 22, and we spent our time learning what youthful lusts were and what we should replace them with. This week, we're going to be moving on to Paul's instructions to Timothy, to ministers, but also to us in general, about how we ought to conduct ourselves, namely, that we're not to be quarrelsome. We're not to be the kind of people looking for a fight. And so my hope is that God will help each one of us to see how we're tempted to be quarrelsome and why it's important for us, each one of us, that we resist this temptation. As I said, our text is 2 Timothy 2, verses 22 to 26. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace.

with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart, but refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil. having been held captive by him to do his will. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So this morning's sermon, we're going to be focusing on this phrase, the Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome, the beginning of verse 24. And so I want to define for you what quarrelsome is. It's not a word that we use. We may know what quarrels mean, but it's not something we use in our normal vocabulary. And so when Paul says, The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome. What he's saying is that a minister must not be a fighter. He must not be the sort of man who stirs up conflict. It's antithetical to his calling. And so men who are called to ministry, to gospel ministry, cannot be the sort of men who are agitators, those who like to fight, those who are looking to stir up strife. A pastor's primary responsibility

is to save souls, to minister to them, to build people up, to preach the gospel, and to call people to believe it. A fighter, on the other hand, a quarrelsome man, cannot do this work. He cannot do this work because his business is tearing down. To fight is to destroy. To tear down, a pastor's job is to build up and to preach the gospel. And so I want to start by saying to you, there's lots of discussion these days about, in our circles anyway, about what it means to be a man. It's not the sort of, we're not surrounded by men, manly men in our society, so we don't come up understanding what a man is. I remember when I came to faith, the thing that was very clear to me is I had no idea what it meant to be a Christian man, let alone a Christian husband or a Christian father. I wasn't married at the time, but I realized No one had ever taught me how to be a man. And there's a danger in that. And the danger is that the world begins to define what a man is and how a man ought to behave. And sadly, many times in the church, we suck in and allow the way that the world defines manhood to become how we define manhood. And so you can see this first in effeminacy and softness in men coming into the church.

But then you also can see in the church a reaction to that, where men say, I'm not going to be a soft man. I'm not going to be effeminate. I'm going to be a man. And what they become is fighters, men who want to argue, men who want to contend, men who just have to get their way and be right, and their mouths just run and run and run. And they think that this is what makes them a man, but it's not what makes you a man. Fighting is not. Manly. Now, some of you may be saying, you're really making me uncomfortable. And I'll come back. I know what's making you uncomfortable. And I'll come back and help you understand. But first, I want you to get in your head that being a fighter does not make you a man. And that the Lord's bondservant, especially ministers of the gospel, are not to be quarrelsome men who fight for the sake of fighting, who are contenders, always looking for a conflict.

Instead, the Lord's bondservant is a shepherd. His job is to tend and to care for the sheep, for God's sheep, for his people, his children. And this work does mean that at times ministers will be embroiled in conflict, that they will fight, but not because they're fighters. They fight to protect. They fight to defend. They don't fight to destroy. And so when a minister fights to bring peace, or to ward off danger. He's doing his job, and he's not sinning against this passage. Another way of saying this is that ministers are not to be fighters, but they must fight. And it's a difficult distinction to make. But if you examine your own heart and you think about what kind of man you are and what kind of men you look up to, what I hope you find is that the men you look up to are not fighters. They may fight quite often.

But they fight for the sake of God's glory and for the protection of God's people, not for their tearing down. And so when you see a man, a pastor, engaged in a conflict, it's imperative. Imperative, meaning of the utmost importance, absolutely necessary, essential, the sort of thing you cannot neglect. It's imperative. that you figure out the source of the conflict. Is this man the source of the conflict? And if they are, you should stay clear of them. You ought not to listen to or follow men who make it their business to stir up conflict and to fight. Now, why would a pastor want to be a fighter? You say it's easier than being a shepherd. Yes, it sells. Luis says it draws attention. Yeah, fighting sells.

Standing up and speaking with a loud voice and smacking your pulpit and being aggressive, it sells. People are like, oh man, something's going on. I didn't go listen to him. Our hearts, every one of us are inclined to pay attention to the chaos or the ruckus or the uproar. We go, what's going on over there? Our hearts are inclined toward fighters. We like fighters. Not just as ministers, but just in general. Largely the reason I think Donald Trump won in 2016 is simply because he's a fighter. But a man who fights, if you could use him as an example, who I think was God's kindness to us in putting off some of the hardships that we're facing in society for a period of time, is not the kind of man you want to be a pastor. You want a pastor who is not quarrelsome. You want a pastor that can control his mouth and what he says and has wisdom and discretion enough to know what he should engage in and what's worth fighting about and why he's fighting.

Not just the kind of man who runs roughshod through life. The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome. Though he may, and in our day increasingly so, he will spend his time fighting. But his fight, as I said, is to defend and to protect, not to tear down and not to draw attention to himself. If you were to think of a shepherd having to tend his sheep and you were to ask him, do you want to have to fight off the wolves or the bears or the sheep stealers? Or would you rather be able to pasture your sheep in safe feed? What would he say? Of course he would say, I would like to be able to pasture my sheep in green pastures. But he understands that his work of pasturing his sheep in green pastures is to fight off the wolves and the danger. And so he does fight, but for their protection and for their safety. And I can't emphasize to you enough how important it is.

that you discern why men are fighting, what they're fighting about, what they stand to gain, and that you've disciplined yourselves not to be attracted to or to follow men who are quarrelsome, who fight for the sake of the people listening, that they might go, oh, listen to him. His rhetoric and his bombast and his aggression, a true man, the true man is Jesus Christ. And if I were to give you him as an example of true manhood, Was he capable of fighting? Oh, yeah. You remember when Peter lopped off the ear of the slave that came to arrest him? What did Jesus say to him? He said, if I wanted to put these men down, couldn't I call legions of angels from heaven and come and just wipe them out? He had power. He had strength. He had the ability and resource to do whatever it was he wanted.

spoke and was aggressive or fought, it was for the sake of the people. He was not a destroyer. And so ministers ought not to be quarrelsome. They ought not to be the kind of men who are always fighting for the sake of fighting, for the sake of gaining attention or an audience. They shouldn't use their fighting and their conflict to sell their ministry. So what do ministers fight about? In verse 23, Paul tells... Timothy, to refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. And so he tells us, it's not something we're to wonder about or I wonder what that means. He says, this is what ministers fight about. It's one of the things. Foolish and ignorant speculations. Now we've touched on in previous weeks, in the previous passage, that we're to avoid worldly and empty chattel. That we should avoid fruitless discussion. That was the phrase that I kept using, that a minister ought to avoid fruitless discussion. His words should have weight, should have consequence, and should mean something. And so here Paul comes back to it yet again and tells Timothy to avoid fruitless discussion, to refuse foolish and ignorant speculations. By refusing, he means to turn away. So you might think of you going out to a restaurant and them bringing you your meal and you going,

That's not what I ordered. You have a choice. You can either eat it with the tomatoes or the sour cream or the whatever you told them you didn't want on it. You can choose to eat the meal. But to refuse it is to say, this is not what I want. This is not what I ordered. Please take it back to the kitchen and bring me what I asked for. That is what it means. That's a way of describing what Paul means here by to refuse. these arguments to say, no, I'm not going to eat that. That's not right. He says ministers ought to treat foolish and ignorant speculations in that same way. No, I'm not going to engage here. And so a minister's speech ought to be fruitful. It ought to be aimed at edification, at the building up of the people. Even as he fights, he ought to be seeking the good of the people and not their harm. Now, which one of us can say that we're not tempted to be sucked into

foolish or ignorant speculations, theoretical conversations. I've learned in my own home, not as a pastor, but as a husband, as a father, and as a pastor, that there is a much greater likelihood of conflict and bad conflict when you argue about theoretical decisions instead of real decisions. You will argue and argue and argue because you don't have a concrete choice in front of you with its context and with its details. And so you have to make it all up. You have to make up the situation. You have to make up the context. You have to make up the pros and cons list. And then you argue about every little thing in here. And at the end of it, what is produced? What has been gained? Nothing. This is an example of foolish or ignorant speculations.

I've said with Vanessa, I've said with our elders, when we're inclined to get too far out into the tall grass in a discussion, I'll say, guys, we will need to talk about that at some point, but it's not yet clear what the circumstances will be when we have to make that decision. So the best thing for us to do is not to fight about it now and argue about it, but rather to table the discussion until we have more actual details. And what I've found on our session, and in my marriage, is that when I do that, there's far less fighting. Because it turns out that my wife and I actually aren't as opposed to each other as we think we are once we're both looking at the same set of concrete details and context. We don't actually go, no, I want black and I want white. We say, well, we may have liked black, but the cost is too high for that. Neither one of us end up wanting it. Refuse these sorts of conflicts.

Men in our circles, Reformed circles, love to do this. They love to argue in this way about theology. And I think a lot of theological discussion, a lot of theological preaching and ministry falls in this camp of foolish and ignorant speculations. It's not aimed at... how should we then live? Like if we're going to have an argument and we're going to have a discussion and we're going to disagree and we're going to work out our disagreement, it should have some bearing on my life as I walk away from that discussion. And if it doesn't, we're in danger of wasting our time and having a fruitless discussion. Now sometimes you have to get, sometimes there is a place where that stuff is necessary, but I'll tell you, online is not the place.

And it's especially not the place with people you don't know. It is a waste of time. It's not helpful. And so many reformed people love to talk about theology and about the things that are going on in the church and, well, I want this in a husband. Well, I think my wife should be like that. Well, I think about this. To what end? To what end? I think largely it's an echo chamber. It's a waste of time. It creates lots of fighting and division. It's fruitless and ought to be avoided. And pastors especially, though you're not exempt from it as a congregant, as a Christian, should simply say, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. And you worry, well, if I don't speak, what will happen? All these people will be led astray and they'll believe their lies. And I'm saying, they're going to believe their lies anyway. You're just going to waste your time.

You have to ask, why am I doing it? Probably, if you're honest with yourself, you're doing it for the same reasons that ministers like to fight, and it's to build your own brand and your own name and your own reputation. You think you can say it better than everybody else while you neglect the weightier matters of the law. There sit your family. There sit your kids. There sits your work, not being cared for and not being attended to because you're absorbed in foolish and ignorant speculations. And so I'm saying to you, without a caveat, Do not waste your time online arguing about theoretical questions. Have none of it. That's what I think you should do. That's what I think this passage requires of you. Avoid those kind of conversations, and you will avoid much of what leads to fights and quarrels. A pastor's job, if we move beyond online discussion, theoretical conversation, if we move into what a minister is doing when he preaches, And when he teaches, when he ministers to his people, his job is simply to take the text, to avoid in his teaching and preaching foolish speculations, and simply to draw out the simple meaning of it and to apply it to his people. If you've sat under sermons or if you listen to them online and they're full of caveats and explanations of why it could mean this but doesn't mean that, where we talk about...

all of the Greek grammar and the Greek syntax, or where we run through every possible meaning of this word or phrase, I tell you this is not preaching, and that the man doing it is not being attentive to this verse, and that you ought not to listen to it or feed on it. I often tell you, and I'll reiterate again, if you're going to read Calvin, let's say we like John Calvin, he's great and a reformer, and we just love John Calvin. If you want to read John Calvin and you want to be most helped, read his sermons. Not his commentaries. Read his sermons. Because that's where you get him talking to his people. It's not scholastic. It's not primarily theological. He's ministering to their souls. He's avoiding all of the speculations. If you read his commentaries, he's dealing with this misunderstanding and that misinterpretation and all of these sorts of things that have their place. But when he comes to ministering to his people,

He doesn't embroil them in the conflict that theologians have had. He avoids those quarrels, and he simply ministers to his people with his words. And that's the kind of minister you want in his conduct online and his conduct in his church. You want him simply to take what God has said, not to fight about it at every point, but to apply it to the people. who are around him, which is to say that he would take responsibility for the things he says and the people who hear him. And so the Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome. He's to avoid, to refuse foolish and ignorant speculations because these are largely what produce the quarrels that he'll be tempted toward. Instead of that, he's to be kind to all. He is to be able to teach, patient when he is wronged with gentleness.

correcting those who are in opposition. Now, you remember at the beginning, I said that a pastor's primary job is not to have a running commentary on current events. His primary job is not to be a fighter. His primary job is to save souls. And here, Paul tells us God's methods of souls being saved. Kindness, patience, gentleness. It's hard to fight when you're being kind. You don't end up in fights when you're being patient or gentle. Do you think that God argues us into the kingdom, into believing in his son? Do you think he fights with us to get us to believe? And the reason I'm asking is that if these are God's methods, then they ought also to be his minister's methods. How does God bring us to repentance and faith? In Romans chapter 2, Verse 4, Paul says, do you think lightly of the riches of his, the Lord's, kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? And so if a minister's job is to save souls, then it's imperative that he be a kind man, that he be a patient man, and that he be gentle in the face of opposition.

It's imperative. And the reason is because that's how God leads us to repentance. When you come to faith or when God works and you see your sins and you feel the weight of them, the comfort you find is in God's incredible mercy to you and how long he's born with you in your hardness of heart without casting you out. And it may be in the midst of severe discipline. But the Christian, even in the face of being disciplined for his sins, looks and goes, I deserve so much worse than this. It could be so much worse, and it would be just if it was. And it should have come years ago. But God has been merciful and bearing with me. And the fruit of all of that, of years and years of sin, has been that now I see and I repent. And you're humbled by the kindness of God that he bore with you all those years.

and didn't cast you out. And this is how ministers are to behave. Because this is how God works in our lives. And he uses his ministers as his hands and his feet and as his mouth to save souls. And so he says that there should be kind to all. It's very easy for ministers, just like it is for you, to be kind to some. But any one of us could create a list. If I said, go in your family and list the people you don't like to be kind to, you could do it. And if I said, list the people in the church that you have a hard time being kind with, you could do it, or at work, or in society. Whether we divide it up by race, or age, or social class, kindness doesn't happen to be one of our strong suits, especially not when we're to be kind to all. We may be kind to some, those who are like us.

Those who we stand to derive benefit from, we can be kind to them. But the Lord's bondservant is to be kind to all. Christians are to be kind to all. How easy is it for us to look down on others, to withhold kindness, to despise them? But you remember in Romans where it says that it was God's kindness that brought us to repentance. Is that your desire for those that you're around? Do you want to see them come to repentance? Next week we're going to look at Verses, verse 26. But you'll realize, you know, a little sneak peek into next week, the reason that you're to be kind, gentle, patient, and able to teach, the reason you want ministers to be that, can you put it up, Joseph? Switch to the last verse. So that they may come to their senses, those who are in opposition to the truth, so that they can escape the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. So that they'll come to faith.

And so the things a minister says and the things that a minister does and the way he behaves are all aimed at the salvation of sinners. And God says, if you want to see them saved, if you want to love them, if you want them to come to repentance truly, you're to be kind and gentle and patient. Kind to all. Not just kind to the ones you can go back, Joseph. Not just to the ones that are easy to be kind to. You remember in Scripture, Where he tells us that if you're kind to people who are kind to you, what benefit is that to you? It's of no benefit to you if I'm nice to John because John's nice to me. That doesn't even rise to the level of acknowledging this passage as having any weight. Unless, of course, John and I have a conflict and I'm being miserable to him and he's kind to me in the face of my antagonism. Then, yes. But if John and I just happen to get along and are good friends, then...

He's being kind to me, but when it says all, be kind to all, Paul's outlining the people that you don't like to be kind to. The people, when they come, you go, oh, you again. Kinds to all. Hoping and praying that your kindness will reflect God's kindness and bring them to salvation, to repentance, and to faith. In addition to kindness, we're also to be patient, but not just patient generally, patient when? When wronged. Do you have trouble being patient, waiting on God? You pray for something, want something. It's hard to be patient. Now, is God sinning against you by not answering your desires? No, he's not sinning against you, right? He can't sin. But patience, even at that level, is hard when you know that God is good and that he cares intimately and carefully for each one of his children. It's even in that context hard to be patient. How much harder is it to be patient when someone sins against you?

It's like dynamite with a short fuse. It's like bang. Off it goes. Bang. Yeah. And so not just patient generally, but patient when you're wronged, when you're sinned against. There's not a day that goes by when we don't sin or we're not sinned against. You ever notice that someone, you know, been in a conversation with somebody and they're just grumpy. And you realize, I think they're upset at me. I had this conversation, full disclosure, with Daniel last night. We were on the phone. I called him. And it became clear to me that I had offended Daniel. He was upset at me. And I didn't know why. And so at some point I stopped the conversation and I said, Daniel, you're upset at me, aren't you? And he said, well, yes. You told me to do something and now you're telling me I did it wrong. And I was like, I'm sorry. That is not what I meant to communicate. And we worked it out and it was sweet.

How hard is it to be patient with people? I mean, I tell you that story. I mean, I tell you the details. You don't need to know them. But your pastor and one of your elders just last night were having to deal with, we're working through trying to be patient with each other. Because I think you probably thought, Dave. And I probably thought, Daniel. Like, this is what's going on in both of our heads. But we worked through it. We were patient. And then we're able to be reconciled and talk through our problems. And it was sweet. But it wasn't easy. And the reason it's not easy is because we sin. Other people sin against us. And instead of acknowledging the sin or dealing with it half the time, because we don't even see that we're upset. We don't even see that we're losing patience. The Lord's bondservant is to be patient when he's wronged, when he's sinned against, when people lie about him, when people malign him, when people misrepresent him. I mean, what does it mean to be wronged except for someone to sin against you, someone to lie about you? This text says,

When you get sinned against, be patient. There's no caveat that says be patient as long as they didn't tell a lie about you. But if they tell a lie about you, then you can fight. No. Patient when wronged. Patience is quite evangelistic. I asked you earlier, have you had people be kind to you when you've not deserved it? Have you had people bear with you and be patient with you when you were just chewing on them like a cheap piece of meat? And they're patient with you. And you go, ugh. How many wives, day by day, have to be patient when they're sinned against? And their husbands have to realize, she didn't bite my head off, and she sure should have. One without a word. How many husbands bear with their wives? How many parents bear with their children? Patiently enduring their foolishness, their stupidity, their ignorance, their sins. Extending kindness, bearing.

with them. I often talk to the men here about being able to gracefully take a punch. Sometimes you get, you know, and it's a metaphor, right? I'm not saying, you know, when someone punches you in the jaw, this is how you're supposed to fall down. What I'm saying is when people sin against you, that's the punch. You have to learn how to graciously absorb it without punching back. And this is our natural inclination. I'll be patient with you as long as You're not throwing punches, but as soon as the punches start coming, well, then I'm fighting back. I lose patience with you. And there's a lot to be said in learning how to graciously take a punch and how that act will de-escalate the tension. How if you maintain patience when someone sins against you, it will help diffuse. Am I promising you it will always diffuse? No. But it does help. This is patience. And it's incumbent. It's essential.

for a minister of the word, to be a patient man, bearing with all of us in our weakness. Now, do you have to talk to be kind? Not always. Do you have to talk to be patient? Do you have to talk to gently correct those who are in opposition? Yes. And I think this is probably the hardest of the three that we've gotten to so far. It's one thing to keep your mouth shut when someone sins against you, or you're upset, or you're angry, and you bite your lip. Keep your mouth shut. But a minister here, in effect, Paul says, you know, he says earlier, you're not to be quarrelsome, but he does say here, you're to correct those who are in opposition, but you're to do so gently. And so the minister cannot be a man who is silent in the face of lies, in the face of blasphemy, in the face of calling good evil and evil good.

He's to be gentle in his correction of the opposition. But he cannot be so intent on arguing or vindicating the truth that he forgets the person he's speaking to has a soul. Whatever wickedness they're saying, whatever wickedness they're participating in, they have a soul that needs saving. And that you're his mouth. You're God's mouthpiece. You're his ambassador to love them at that point. It's very hard to look at people and to think of them as having souls. We don't think these ways anymore. We don't look at those who are in sin and think, I don't want you to go to hell. I'm absolutely convinced of the truth and the reality of hell and that you and I, we deserve it, but I don't want you to go to hell. We don't think in these terms. We think in terms of race. We think in terms of class. We think in terms of politics. We think of the things that...

divide us when we as Christians ought to think of the thing that unites us, which is sin. Whether you're rich or you're poor or you're black or you're white or you're a Democrat or you're a Republican, you're all shut up under sin. And every one of you, however God's made you or the person is persuaded, has a soul that needs saving or they will go to hell. And so it's necessary that we speak with love to those who are perishing with gentleness. This is what it means. I skipped over the part where Paul says he has to be able to teach. To be able to teach in the face of conflict, to be able to speak when there's opposition is a very difficult thing. And to do it with gentleness and graciously is a gift that only God can give us because we don't possess the ability or strength in ourselves to do it. And yet we're to be gentle in our corrections and in our rebukes. Whether you're dealing with your children,

Or you're dealing with some politician to be gentle. And the truth is we get tired of being gentle. We think it's not getting through. They're not learning. So what do we do? We turn up our volume. We turn up our rhetoric. I fear that too often we believe that gentleness simply is useless. You think that you have to meet and match. the intensity of those that you fight with in such a way that you're free of any responsibility to conduct yourself as a Christian in the middle of conflict. They fight this way, so we can too. No. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says, If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I have become a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. It's useless.

The truth is the truth however you say it, but it's largely rendered useless if it's coming out of the mouth of a fighter. I think many times we set aside gentleness because of our own insecurity. I think we ramp up our rhetoric or ramp up our frustration in the way that we speak about conflict because we just don't know what else to do with it. And we're just trying to resolve the conflict and we're like, well, the tension is kind of building. If I just blow it up. If I just destroy the relationship or the conversation, then at least it'll be over. Because if I'm gentle, they may not listen. And it may not be resolved. And I may have to go away still living in the tension. So instead, I'd rather just fight it out and just have a big blowout. And then at least I'll be free of the conflict. And I can comfort myself with the truth that I told them the truth. And yet, if you speak with the tongues of men and angels, but you don't have love,

done nothing of value. And so it turns out that the method, and not just the method, message, are important to God. Not just that you would speak the truth, but how you speak it. For me to say probably the last 10 minutes or so, for me to talk about this, I've kind of felt uncomfortable, because I feel like I'm telling you to do something that needs to be explained a little more thoroughly. It's like, well, you just need to be gentle. You just need to be gentle. And what I'm not doing is saying, down boy, down boy, be nice, down boy, don't ever, Have a principle. Don't ever have a clear line in the sand. I'm not saying that. I'm saying there is a way of communicating a clear line in the sand with grace. Gently. It's hard, but it is possible. It is necessary. We have to learn to think as Christians about our souls and the souls of the people we're around. And as we speak to them, whatever we're talking about, we need to speak to them.

as though they have a soul that needs saving. If you put that in your head, it will protect you from a lot of fighting, a lot of quarreling, and it will help you be kind. Because instead of having a conflict in front of you where you go, I have to win, I have to be right, I have to get out of this tension, you'll say, this may be the only chance I get to speak to this person if I'm a jerk. Whereas if I'm kind, we may not get all the work done in this conversation, but there may be a second one. And so what's true of a minister should also be true of you. So what are my applications, right? First, as I've mentioned, fruitful, not fruitless conversation with kindness, patience, and gentleness. Two applications to you. The first, I think, is obvious. These things need to be true of you, not just of your pastors. If you have a reputation of being a firebrand, running your mouth, liking to fight, being quick to disagree,

you're not doing what God says. You're quarrelsome. Secondly, given the society that we live in today, there are lots of people who've hung a shingle out and said, I'm worth listening to because we have social media. You can pick and choose from countless pastors. And so I'll tell you two things. First, your first responsibility is to me and to your elders to be sure that we're not quarrelsome because we're your pastors and elders, right? So if we're out of line, if you see me being quarrelsome, you should speak to me about it. Or it's Dan or Daniel or John, Abram, right? You should talk to us about it. And I'm not asking you to be judgmental or to be rude. If you find that I'm being pugnacious or a fighter, you ought to come to me with kindness and gentleness and say, hey, I think you're being a little too hard on your son or your daughter or whatever.

But the men who don't have responsibility over you, actually, all of the men who speak online, I'll just tell you, I think you'd be better off if you listened to very little of them at all. But if you are going to listen to them or be around them or realize that there is some level of engagement that you'll have in your life with them, don't give your ear to quarrelsome men who fight. If they're brawlers, if they're fighters, if they're always in the midst of conflict and they're the source of it, Stay away from them. And this is a very difficult thing to do because I'm asking you to make judgments, but gracious and discerning judgments. Gracious in that you realize at any given time, pastors will be quarrelsome. And for sinful reasons. There's no perfect pastor who never falls into this sin.

And so you have to be gracious, and yet you also have to be discerning and realizing, is the testimony of this man's life and his ministry that he's always in a fight and he's the source of it? And that the trajectory of his conflict is that it pulls attention to him, and it's not made to protect the people, and particularly their souls. And I think, and today I have to say to you, there's a difference between caring for someone's soul and caring for someone's freedom. They're not the same thing. Is there overlap? Yes. To some extent there is. Am I saying that there should be no opposition from Christians with regard to defending freedom? No, I'm not. But they're not actually the same thing. And when they come into conflict, and the question is, are you going to behave like a Christian or are you going to fight for your American liberties? It's imperative that you follow men who say, your soul is more important than your freedom. And that, I can tell you, is not a popular thing to say these days.

Because in our society, the things we care about, we say freedom, but I think it means our wealth and our standard of living. And we have it better than Christians have ever had it in any society throughout all time in terms of wealth and freedom. And who are you? Who are we to fight at the sake of our own souls and those souls around us to defend the comforts of this life when we forsake and neglect the care of our souls? in the life to come. And so if we're going to fight for our freedoms, and we're going to fight for our liberties, and we're going to fight for the good of our fellow common man, we ought to do it like Christians. And if it's not God's will that our gentleness would produce the sort of wave of revival that we would like to see, then that too is in God's hands. And that's scary. But whether we acknowledge that or whether we fight against it,

We will do nothing to move God's will in these matters of our society and our freedoms one bit. He does know what will become of our nation and what will become of his people who live in it. And we're to be humble, kind, gentle, patient, faithful as Christians in the face of opposition, in the face of persecution, in the face of suffering, in the face of bondage. And slavery. And if you're like me, inside of you at some point, there's this thing welling up that goes, I don't know that I can. You ask God to help you do it. In that regard, you and I are not all that different. I have things that well up inside of me. Strong inclinations to fight. But the Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome. And so I have to discipline myself. And so you have to discipline yourselves for the sake of godliness. Being kind and patient and gentle.

even in the face of hardship. You follow me? Let's pray.