And also your faults on just who you are in this church and have all these officers sitting up here in the front and that is best that no one in this room is an island. You may think you are, you may desire to be, but if it's done right and with regard to our worship as a church and our fellowship and our accountability and our submission to these men, no man, the woman, the child in this room is an island for themselves. We do not have, it is not us, maybe I should say it that way. It is not Trinity Church to have isolation among our members. I say that to encourage you, I say it, maybe to exhort you depending on what your mentality is about the church. I want you to look at this map and see that on the right hand side, it is not real easy to read, but you will see on the right side, the city of Antioch, and you will see under that serious, I am talking about far right. This is one of the great cities of the ancient world and this is where Paul started his first missionary journey. This was the sending church. They sent him out and you will follow the arrows, he went to Cyprus and then sailed to Persia and it said Persia that he started traveling on land through this mountainous areas of another city called Antioch, Antioch of the city, and then you will see Iconium and Lystra and in Derby. What I want you to say, because I mentioned this last week and I want you to say it for yourself, before your eyes, that I want you to notice how close Derby is to Antioch. The first Antioch, where he had been sent, is sending church how easy it would have been for him to travel just that small traveling area, they are overlanded back to the home church. Do you know what lies between Derby and Antioch's area? Tarsus. Tarsus is where Paul was from, this was his hometown, don't you know he longed to go back there, where he grew up? He would have been very easy for Paul to say, well I have made the circle. I have finished my work now, I am just going to head back home and I am going to go back through Tarsus and then I am going to give my report to Antioch, but instead and we emphasize this last week, he turns around and he retraces his steps through Lyftra, Aconium, and Antioch, obviously taking the long way home, and if you have been half listening over the last three months, you will notice he took the more dangerous way, Paul. Why did he do that? We asked that last week, but I didn't have these men 10, 20 feet away from him, I am asking them pointedly, why did Paul turn around? Why did he, instead of taking the easy way, why did he go back the long way, why did he go back the more dangerous way? The reason is that Paul knew that these Christians and these churches needed encouragement, they needed strengthening, they needed leadership, they needed names. And that is where we find ourselves this morning as a church, you men up here are Paul and Barnabas. You could even make an argument, this is Paul over here and this is Barnabas. And your job, your calling is to look out, look out over Lyftra, look out over Aconium, meaning look out over the last year, look out over many years, Craig, you can see where we come, where we've been, and it's your job to say it's not time to rest, it's not time to go home is to use the analogy, we need to retrace our steps possibly, and it's your job to say that there's work to be done, there's shape that need to be have shepherding, there are disciples that need to be encouraged, shape that need to be strengthened, and shape that need your leadership. You could even say that 1423 is symbolic of our church, as a whole, that 2000 was our first missionary journey together, near your pastor, as a church, we took our first missionary journey in the year 2000, and now we're at Derby, sure would be easy to go home with it, it'd be easy to go back to being in the way that we were, the 1423 is a wake up call, it's a call to us as a church to survey our work, as I said, these men retrace our steps if we need to pray and fast, select new leadership, pray and fast for more, and then go, move forward, not back, not look over our shoulders, but move forward in the direction that God would have us go. I want to look at an exposition of just this verse, if you'll notice verse 23, it says, so when they had appointed elders, in the Greek this term appointed, it can actually mean alect, it can mean appointed, it can mean shoes, it indicates, as the word is used again in 2 Corinthians 8 verse 19, where an indication is electing by raising of hands, and then in Acts 21, saying word was used, and it meant to install directly, I'll tips them up in his comments here, he's talking about this word, he says to appoint actually means to approve by a show of hand in a congregational meeting, that simplifies the force a little bit, because we can identify with that, I don't know how easy, I don't think we really know exactly how they did it, but obviously the congregation prayed and they fasted it over the selection process, obviously they had some kind of votes, and then these men were brought before the apostles to be examined and to be approved, and then they were appointed, and all of this is placed before they were ordained and installed, much like our cross, and you notice the verse continues, because it says, in every church, meaning it's appointing of elders, this word elder is the word uterus, we get our word transbiterion, it is the word in a great that is used interchangeably with the word episcopus, where you get the word episcopus, and it means vision, it means oversight, that is the function of the elder, episcopus is the function, because virus is the adjective, it has to do more with their age, but elder is a ruling office, Acts 20, 20, 28 says, therefore take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseer, the shepherd, the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood, and then the text continues, our text verse 23, it's kind of hard to determine what exactly is the object of blood, because it says like having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed that word may trusted, again, testimony of his words, that after having spent some time with these churches, Paul and Barnabas entrusted them, he said as a reference to the members of the church, you may need to near that, entrusted the members of the church to the care of the Lord, just worth noting that these apostles are about the business of planting churches, and you didn't know that's where I stand, as your pastor, that's my passion, that is where the priority of our mission dollar is going to go is to planting churches, we support a slew of parent church organizations, I understand why there are certain individuals in the church, given a lot of money to these places, and ministries that they warm your heart and things that are good ministries, but the priority of our church is and is going to be planting other churches, it's not enough to just establish a mission, it's not enough to simply establish some medical mission or an educational effort, but later not, I go as far as I say, it's not enough to just quote Converse, or have a ministry where you can say, so in so many decisions were made in this, that's not enough, it's not the church, in a follow-up study on the Here's Life campaign of the mid-70s found that of the 500,000 decisions that were made through this ministry only 3% ended up in the church, 3% of those 500,000 quotes decisions for Christ, or to talk more about that Lord willing next week, what's the decision, what does it mean, when do we call it valid, but Paul didn't leave, and this is the point this morning, Paul didn't leave them in house churches, he didn't leave them without structure, he didn't leave them without order, he created by God's leading, created these offices, and he ordained these men to serve in these respective offices, these formal offices if he will, some people want to refer to this sort of thing as organized religion, they use that word with religion and they say, I don't believe in organized religion, well I'm sorry to inform you, the New Testament, the early church, it was organized religion, and that's what we have here,
why because structure is important, and the order is important, and officers are necessary in leadership and authority are good, and church government is good, and church government is important, and it's important for you to put yourself voluntarily under the leadership of these men, it's very important for you to do that, membership and it church is important, it's not only important, it's biblical, those of you who are vacillating and you've got to be careful what you say to the visitors, and read their dinners, you don't want to run them off, I know, but you don't understand that drifting with the spirit and just saying, well I'll go here, this Sunday, I'll go over here, this Sunday, it's not good, it's very dangerous, it's dangerous for your family, and where you attend church, you should put yourself under the authority of that church, because if you don't, not only is it not biblical, for you to attend a church under which these people don't have authority over you, not only is it unbiblical, as I said, it's dangerous for you, it's not safe, it's not healthy for you, and it's long, so I encourage you to do that, back to the thrust of what this verse is saying is what I want to say, these men is what's happening to you, men today, is bigger than yourself, and that's the way it should be, and that's the way you should want it to be, you should pray to your office in the churches, you should look at, say it's bigger than I, because you represent God, do you realize that? You are his shepherd, you are his servant, his hands, his face, his mouth, his authority, when you visit the lost house, which we're going to do more of, as we get into our shepherding, all of you will be called on to do that, because that's the way, as the teacher said, I was professionally simulated, you are Christ, for that person, and I didn't know if I liked it, or if I still don't know, I like it, but that's what you are, you are Christ, you represent him to this spot, because I say that reverently and humbly, it's because you're an undershepard, you are a shepherd of this spot, it's your duty to shepherd, it's your duty to cycle and strengthen these individuals and lead them. First Peter 5, the elders who are among you, exhorts, I am a fellow elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherds of flock of God, which is among you. Staring his overseen, there's not by constraints, but willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly, nor is being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples of the flock. Here's why, this is scary, it says, when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory, it does not fade away, you'll get an account. All of you men will get an account for how you let these sheep, their blood is on your hands, your account for everyone, your account for everyone is on the on the on the role of the church, your answer for everyone of them, it's leadership, that's what it's about Paul turned around, and he didn't head home, because he knew that those churches needed leadership, leaders leaned where people wouldn't otherwise go, that's your job, lead them where they wouldn't go if they didn't have you, what are your plans? I know you've got plans, you've got plans for your businesses, you've very committed a plan for your businesses, plans materially, where do you want to be 10 years, not 20 years, you've got plans for your family, plans for your children, what are your plans spiritually to grow? You men, where's your, what have you thought about with the new year? What have you sat down and said specifically, this is the area that I'm going to be salt and light in Montgomery, Alabama this year, have you done
what are your plans for Trinity Church? Shirley's officers, you thought about that, what are your goals for the church? Where do you want to say this church goes? Where would you want to say these sheep? Where do you want to say them be at the end of your turn? And then what are you going to do to see that they get there? You want them to think outside the box? You will understand the time playing, the serious job, very serious and you have a very serious obligation to make plans, not materialistic plans, not selfish plans, Christ-centered plans for this church. I said I'm going to take them there. A year ago on this Lord's Day it was really I think it was January the 2nd but it was the 1st Lord's Day of the New Year. I said before you, my knees were knocking, they still knocked, the lights were bright, they still bright. I've never come in here before and thought it stood up here before that first Sunday. Now this is okay, then when I came in it was like whoa, this is bright and hot. But if we laid out four goals and they were more or less priorities. We said this is where we're going to prioritize in our church and everything that we're going to do is going to have to do with these four items. Do you remember they all started with P and the 1st they weren't any special order but the 1st was the pastor you and I told you I felt that I was called here to pastor, that was the understanding I got from the public and they told me you needed someone to just love you and I tell you on behalf of the MacRoberts family, we love you immensely. You're easy to love and we thank you for loving us. We praise God for that, the pastor, the preparation for leadership, that was number 2. Preparing our leadership in week to week, we said we're going to commit to 12 week, a 12 week study and the men that were interested in serving as officers in the year to come were said you got to take this course because it's going to set the stage for who we are and the men and the women, hundreds of you took that course. We praise the Lord for that. We said praise the Word and I told you in that Lord's day and morning I needed time to prepare you've given me that time I thank you for that. And then we said pray and we said if we didn't do anything else in 2000 it was okay and I think we did that. For these men's leadership right here I believe that we did that, I believe we prepared much of the leadership. God has blessed the preaching of the Word and He has answered our prayers.
We praise Him for well this year. I say we look back, I say we do the same thing at all in the sense that we reach for each other step, we move it up and again by the grace of God we would say as a church we're ready, we're ready to take it to another level. We're ready to take it to another notch. Let me say we're going to go back and say we're going to pastor you, I want to pastor you, I want to love you more than I love you now or stand here. God willing January 2002 and love you more than I ever felt that I could love you and hug you and get to the other names better. I'm looking for the Victoria directory to come out again. But I want to do that, I want to know you, I want to know you by name. Praise the Word faithfully and play, we just continue to do that. God's provided us with a man to come on staff tomorrow, Blake Smith, a man that has a heart for young people, just has a heart, you're just going to love him because he's just that kind of person that people just like him and he wants to disciple our young people. He wants to pour his life into the genuine high schoolers. And God willing we're going to hire him and assist him a female and we're looking for him. We're very close to hiring another man, I don't know exactly how the last interviews are going to go but it looks like God is leading a man. You know that his heart and his passion is in discipling men and small groups and Christian education. And who knows the church that needs that? I do. Right here. Of all things we need and God is sending us this man's been ordained for six years, got three children, back like I was hired and he's gone but just excited about the fact that that may work out. And about a month, January 29th, if we're going to have these sections on the Lord's day that we would train the officers, the class of 2000 and 2001, 2 and 3. And then again any men who think they might serve as officers and be shepherds in the church, we're going to use our American men as well in this program but our shepherding was spent six weeks training the shepherds and then possibly six months, purging our roles and getting all that in shape and getting the organization behind it and then Lord willing in January of 2002, implementing shepherds. That means going to be a program. I mean that while I'm involved in shepherding, I'm not involved in shepherds. That's not it. You're all going to be involved in shepherding because that's going to be the umbrella. You will be shepherded. Okay. There will be shepherding taking place beyond God willing. We pray in 2001 that we've only scratched the surface of what God will do in our worship services. Pray down the spirit of God and just like I have my mind is just realing with things in every department, our search of things that change and things that better and things to do and hiring here and there and getting to write people in place and we've gotten in who are retiring from their businesses and who want to spend more time at the church and they want to disciple people and this is an exciting day in the life of Trinity Church. God is doing a great, great work and it's not something that we're popped up about and that we have pride about it. It should humble us. It should make us fall in our faces before God that he would love us enough to range up these kind of people like these men to lead us into this year. We have elders retreating in about a month and a half. We've got a mission scum. This is our 25th mission scum for 25th anniversary. Fernando Ortega, if you're interested in Christian music but he's at the very top of the Christian music industry and he's going to have a concert here, Lord willing, in April. All I am, we're going to play reform using this summer, junior high and high school. Rio Bravo, have you heard? Do you know that Rio Bravo? We asked for 150 people from our church. Do you know there's a waiting list now? There's 152 found up. We had 75 beds for women on one side of the dorm, 75 men beds on the other side. Guess what? 150 people, the first 150 people to sign up, there are 75 women and 75 men. Tell me, God doesn't have His hand on this church and our mission and I encourage you still to sign up if you want to. We need the waiting list. You don't know what will happen. Some of the cant and maybe wouldn't be able to go with the last minute or whatever, but I encourage you don't think that you shouldn't sign up or you missed out. Get on the waiting list. And then if you'll take this hand out and look at Wednesday nights where it says action which isn't a cross stick for all church things, that's a very theological term. All church things in one night. This is another direction in our desire to have a church that is family, friendly. We're trying very hard to not have these meetings on Sunday afternoons as one thing and then some will come up here every day, which I love having you up here every day, but I understand that some of you up here is lunch and then that back that is at night for another meeting. And so we're going to say everything on Wednesday. All the meetings on Wednesday is committee meetings, which we're not even used the word committee on the session. They're going to find out about this tomorrow night. They're going to be ministries and we're going to spend more time playing with these ministry meetings. And they may, Wednesday possibly they would want to meet some might need for breakfast. There'll be a lot of lunch meetings then, but they'll also meet that night. I want you to stay to schedule, because there's going to be more time for, more time for eating. How do you like that? More time for supper. We're back in the time up to five o'clock, and then carrying it forward, I didn't really realize that we closed up at about a quarter to six, but we're actually served supper now until six o'clock. The choirs will be dismissed and in the choir graciously and you see there, there's supper five o'clock. This is a good example of the choir sacrifice, and they'll go to their practice at five, forty-five, their practice till seven, but we'll have the others will have fellowship. And it's going to be just a lot more laid back. It's going to be more of an old-fashioned family night supper. I hear from the young couples, all I do is get in there. I feed my children. They leave, and then it's time to go to the Bible saying, I never have time to really take a breath. Well, now we're going to give you time to take a breath. Sit back and enjoy each other. Rest what we need to do. We need to get to know each other, wear the name tags, and just have that kind of fellowship, which will last to about ten after six or six, fifteen, and then we'll be glad. In favorite hymns, I know some of you will love that, favorite hymns, songs, spiritual songs, we're going to have testimony, and just a real prayer for our church, and pray for our sick and hurting, pray for these meetings that will take place that night. All these committee meetings will be moved, and then diaconate in session again. The desire of hoping to have a family-friendly church, I know I used that word last year. What did the church do with these plans that they had? They sanctified their plans. They sent them apart. They prayed for their plans. Look at verse 23 again. So when they appointed elders in every church, and prayed with fasting, they were serious about it. Not just prayer, they fasted over their plans. I encourage you to be doing that. I encourage you to first win day of every month, but it may be that you have a major decision in your life. It may be, it could be anything from a vacation in your family to anything you say, this needs prayer and fasting, and please be doing that. Work it out, and work that out in your spiritual life. I mean, it is one closing illustration, and then, and then we'll application for these amendments, and we'll go into our other part of the service. But the story of these three ministers who were discussing the proper posture and prayer, and they were in the minister's office, and there was a telephone repairman, they were putting in a new system, and one of the ministers said, the best posture for prayer is with your hands away. That's when I'm closest to God. And the other one said, no, the one I'm closest to God is when I'm on my knees. Knees are the best posture for prayer, and if they're out humbling themselves, out humbling each other, say, well, no, it's when you're on your face, that's what the third one said. That's when I'm closest to God. Well, the repairman had all that he could take of that, and interrupted them and said, I found that the most earnest, the most powerful prayer that I've ever prayed, the closest I was ever to God was when my safety belt broke, and I was on the top of a pole, and I found myself upside down, dangling, 15 feet above the ground over a rocky gorge, and I was hanging there by one thin wire by my ankle. And what I want to say to these men is that that's the way you ought to minister in this church. That's the way you shepherd, and the way you play, and the way you fast, the way that you disciple, and the way that you leave the churches, if you are hanging from a pole upside down, 15 feet above the ground, and by the thin wire around your ankle, and the truth is you are ministering like that. You are ministering by thin wire, dangling from, you're dangling from, from what you dangled. Do you know what that thin wire is? It's the will of God. And I'm talking about dependency upon God where you will be men of prayer. It's only by the will of God that you will even wake up tomorrow morning, much less wake up in that food and bring in a family that loves you and children. It's only by the will of God that you're going to wake up and have a church to serve. So I encourage you to minister among us with that kind of dedication, that kind of dependency upon God. Now I ask you to take your other hand out, and you'll see a list of these names, and I want to recognize presenting you to first this class of 2003. I'm going to ask these men if they would stand as I call their name. For the elders in the class of 2003, there will be Marvin Carroll, Bill DeBose, Frank Ellis, Jack Noble, and Barry Tee. And then for the class of 2003 with a doc, and let me mention first these men who have been ordained Christ Bishop, Robert Hogan, Will Sellers, and Robert Wilson. And then we have five men to be ordained this morning. David Grimes, Bart Harmon, Jerry Lash, Philip Reagan, and Todd Romanowski. And then I'll ask these men to stand as I call your name in the class of 2002 for elder John Aubreyton, Lewis Chapman, Stephen Fox, Philip Jadair, Bill Joseph, and Bob Stetford. Class of 2001, Glenn Bezos, author Hester, Michael Freer, Arby Trump.