2023 State of the Union Address:

Apart From Christ We Can Do Nothing - Mark Prater

I'm going to now give the State of the Union, so you guys can open your Bibles to John chapter 15 if you would.

Every year you men give me this opportunity to share a State of the Union message at this meeting and it's something that I always look forward to because it gives me, on behalf of the leadership team, an opportunity to thank you. We so love you men and we so respect you men. Thank you, men and your churches, for how you have participated in and strengthened our common mission to advance the gospel by planting and strengthening churches throughout the world for the glory of God.

I was thinking about many of you this morning as I was praying. You are resilient pastors. You are resilient pastors who have built gospel-centered churches through your faithful preaching, through your skillful pastoral care, and through your devoted leadership. Thank you, men, for how you have led and built your local church. Thank you on behalf of the leadership team for your vision and commitment to build a family of churches extra locally as well.

I see that commitment in our partnership in many ways over this past year. Thank you for how you have given generously over this past year that have enabled us to fund the mission Christ has given us. Thank you. I see that commitment to advance the gospel by sending your best to plant churches. Many of you have done that this past year. Thank you, Ben Kreps. Where are you at, Ben? Thank you, Ben Kreps. Thank you, Jared Mellinger. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Jeffrey Jo. Thank you, Dyonah Thomas. Thank you Carlos Contreras. You men have planted churches this year and you have sent some of your best to do so. That is a wonderful commitment to our shared partnership.

Thank you to the men in Knoxville. Bill Kittrell couldn't be here because he had triple bypass heart surgery just a few days ago. He's back home. Thank God. Thank you, Jake and Mike, and all the guys in Knoxville.

Thank you, Dave Odom. Thank you, Devon Kauflin. Thank you, Jeffrey Joe, again. Thank you, Dyonah Thomas. Thank you, Ed O'Mara. All of those men and more, you will be sending some of your best to plant churches in the next two to three years. That's a wonderful sacrifice and a wonderful expression of our partnership together, how you're committed to it by sending your best. I also want, this is something I've been carrying on my heart for some time. In fact, this whole State of the Union I've been carrying on my heart for months. I want to thank all of the pastors and all the brothers here in the United States who have sacrificially served to serve our brothers and their churches outside of the States over this past year. Thank you, Joselo Mercado, for the countless trips you make to Latin America and being the rock star that you are there in that continent. Thank you, Joselo.

Thank you, Todd Peterson. The many trips you have made to India and to how you serve JP. Thank you, Bert Turner, for the trips that you have made to Brazil and serving our brothers there. Thank you, Dave York, who was just again in the Philippines last month serving Jeff and his pastors in the Philippines. Thank you, Billy Raies, who just in the spring was in Nepal, yet again serving Barnabas and the churches there. Thank you, Dave Quilla and Nate Treguboff for how you have served to train pastors in Pakistan. Thank you, Bart Lipscomb and Bruce Chick, and Bruce's team that have made trips to Liberia this year to serve Dyonah and his pastors there.

Thank you for all of the men, countless men in this room who have traveled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to teach the pastor's college that Josh leads, and so many more of you have made trips. You men here in the United States, we thank God for you. Thank you for your sacrifice and thank you for your service and thank you for your heart, for our mission. Your service and sacrifice, it's a vital example to your local church that reminds them that they're a part of something grander and greater than themselves.

Now, if you listen to the names that I just briefly mentioned, you hear first-generation, you hear founding generation pastors, but you also hear the names of second and third-generation pastors in Sovereign Grace. See, we are becoming a multi-generational family of churches. If you listen to the countries that I mentioned, it's clear that we're becoming a globally diverse family of churches. Brothers, by God's grace, we are becoming a multi-generational, globally diverse family of churches.

At this important moment in our history, this is the question that I want us to wrestle with. I put these two questions in your outline. Even though Sovereign Grace is changing, becoming a multi-generational, global family of churches, how do we, the pastors of Sovereign Grace, lead so that Sovereign Grace doesn't fundamentally change? How do we lead in a way that we remain a gospel-centered family of churches with a defined ecclesiology that is led by zealous pastors who are tenaciously committed to our theological convictions found in our statement of faith, and who build together relationally so that we will continue as a family of churches to advance the gospel throughout the world for the glory of God? How do we do that? How do we do that in this current cultural and evangelical moment which makes leadership right now more challenging and complicated?

I believe our answer, brothers, is found in John chapter 15. This is a text that's been on my heart. Verse 5, in particular, it's a text and that verse that's been on my heart for months. I'm eager to bring it to you today. Because what it shows us, what this text shows us, is our dependence on Christ and why we must continue to abide in Christ to lead our churches into the future in a way that Sovereign Grace doesn't fundamentally change, that we remain committed to fulfilling our mission as a gospel-centered family of churches.

The title of this State of the Union is, Apart from Christ, We Can Do Nothing. I'm going to read John 15, the first eight verses.

This is Jesus speaking to us today through His Word.

I Am the True Vine

15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

Speak to us, Lord, we pray and bless the preaching of your word.

When Christian songwriter and musician Aaron Williams wrote a song entitled Abide,

and by the way, a quick rabbit trail here... This song, Abide, most likely is on Dave Taylor and Eric Turbedsky's Guilty Pleasures worship song list. We were at a leadership team retreat. I knew nothing like this existed. We are a leadership team retreat and these guys are singing to these worship songs and some I'd never heard before. I said, "What is that?" "Oh, this is our Guilty Pleasures worship song list." I said, "What is that?" “Well, these are songs we like, but we know Bob Kauflin would never approve of."

[laughter]

We're just in this car, we're singing these songs. Bob, if you're here, I'm sorry. Abide, I'm guessing, is on this list.

When Christian songwriter and musician Aaron Williams wrote a song just before the pandemic entitled Abide, he didn't realize the effect it would have when the song was published during the pandemic. Williams says that when the song was released, we were all in isolation trying to make sense of all that was happening, and as a result, Christians were feeling this need to be near Jesus. He said there's a difference between being in isolation and being in isolation and abiding in and remaining in Jesus Christ.

The first verse and the chorus I put in your outline, it goes like this,

"For my waking breath,

for my daily bread,

I depend on You.

I depend on You for the sun to rise,

for my sleep at night, I depend.

I depend on You.

You're the way, the truth, and the life.

You're the well that never runs dry.

I'm the branch, You are the vine.

Draw me close and teach me to abide."

Here in John, chapter 15, Jesus is most certainly teaching us to abide, for He uses that word, abide, seven times in those eight verses. Abide, as Aaron Williams says, it means to continue in Jesus. To abide in Jesus means that we remain in Jesus, we continue on in Jesus because we are men who are completely dependent upon Him to bear fruit for Jesus.

Did you hear that clear sense of dependence that we have in Christ found in verse four, repeated again there in verse five, and accented with these words that Jesus says, "For apart from me, you can do nothing"?

See, abiding in Jesus is essential to bearing fruit for Jesus because we can do nothing brothers, apart from Him. How do you continue to bear good gospel fruit in your local church? By abiding in, by remaining in Jesus Christ.

How do we lead in a way together, brothers, so that we would be a gospel-centered family of churches with a defined ecclesiology, with a commitment to our theological convictions? How do we do that in this current evangelical and cultural moment? By abiding in Jesus, saying together: apart from him, we can do nothing.

See, with all the good things that are happening in Sovereign Grace, we must not forget this vital need to abide in Christ each and every day. We have a strong statement of faith that defines and unites our churches and it will serve generations to come. We must remain faithful to it and committed to it and rely on it, but it does not replace our daily need to abide in and to be dependent upon Jesus Christ. We have a wonderful book of church order that defines our partnership and provides structures that act as a trellis on which we can build a global family of churches, but it does not replace our daily need to abide in Christ, for if we don't, the branches on that trellis, they will not bear fruit.

However, if we live and lead and pastor with a daily dependence on Jesus, Sovereign Grace will be a fruitful, lush, multi-generational global family of churches for years to come. Abiding in Jesus is essential for us to bear fruit. I want to talk about six ways that we are going to bear fruit by abiding in Him. These are important now and these are important for our future.

First, abiding produces zeal.

I so appreciated Walt praying that we would be zealous pastors. Now, Jesus begins this allegory with declaring that I am the true vine, which you men know is the seventh of His seven.

“I am” statements in the Gospel of John, and Jesus' declaration that He is the true vine here in verse one - it has massive redemptive historical implications. You know this from your study of scripture, vine or vineyard language is used as imagery throughout the Old Testament to define, to describe Israel, to describe the people of God. Psalm 80, verse 8, for example. However, that same imagery, vine or vineyard, is also used throughout the Old Testament to consistently show the failure of God's people to produce good fruit.

Isaiah 5, verses 1 and 2, talk about the yielding of wild grapes, that is bad fruit. What's happening here in this text is Israel's consistent failure to produce good fruit for God is set in stark contrast to Jesus, who is sent by God the Father, and as you know, lives a perfect life. He dies a perfect death. Dying on the cross in my place and in your place, atoning for our sins, was raised on the third day victoriously, and by so doing produces good fruit that God's people, that no one could ever produce.

See, it is Jesus who is the true vine because he produces the good fruit that no one else could produce. John Köstenberger says theologically, John's point is that Jesus displaces Israel as the focus of God's plan of salvation, with the implication that faith in Jesus becomes the decisive characteristic for membership among God's people.

Who are God's people? Those who have repented of their sin and placed their faith in Jesus Christ. That truth is not simply a rich, redemptive, historical truth for us, we just know it is something that we must keep a close watch on in each of our lives.

We must, brothers, keep a close watch on our souls for any tendency on our part to see our conversion as familiar, as old, distant news, because if you do, if you do that, you'll lack zeal for Christ. A body in Christ means that we must continue to be amazed again and again and even in deeper ways that He would choose us and that He would save us. None of us deserve that and yet He has done that on our behalf.

Why must we continually be amazed that God would save us? Because familiarity with our conversion and familiarity with the person of Christ himself, that breeds apathy. in gospel ministry and that kind of ministry will be a hapless, lethargic, fruitless ministry.

See if your salvation becomes too familiar to you, you won't preach the gospel with the same passion and urgency that we must preach it. It's vital. Our ability to proclaim Christ passionately in the pulpit, it must be the overflow of our daily abiding with Jesus and not getting up from our desk until we've remained in Him and know Him and love Him. That's what affects us in the pulpit, doesn't it? See, our ability to lead with zeal that Jeff called us to last year will only be possible if you and I continue to abide intimately in Jesus every day.

Why is that important for you as pastors? Why is that important for us as a family of churches? Because being pastors who abide in Jesus, who passionately love Jesus, who treasure Jesus, who have zeal for Jesus, those are the kind of pastors that people want to be around, and that's why they come to our churches. See, abiding in Christ intimately is vital for a pastor to have zeal for Christ consistently. It's vital.

Zeal for Christ is important for a couple of other reasons that I want to mention to you.

First is this - The first generation, the founding generation of Sovereign Grace pastors have had an enduring zeal for Christ for decades. It marks their leadership and it's the essence of our gospel culture. I thank God for the founding pastors, for the first-generation pastors in Sovereign Grace, whose zeal has only grown stronger, brothers, as you've aged, as you've gotten older.

You see that in the life of CJ, our founder. I see it in my fellow pastor, Bill Patton. You see it in Wolfgang Wegert in Hamburg, Germany. You see it in Ken Mellinger and Trey Richardson and Warren Boettcher, Mickey Connolly, and so many more of you. Thank you for your zeal for Christ. Thank you that your zeal for Christ has not waned. We thank God for you men.

See zeal for Christ and his church, it has marked Sovereign Grace for 40 years now, and you first-generation pastors, you are providing a wonderful example to the second and third-generation pastors in Sovereign Grace because as Sovereign Grace changes and becomes multi-generational and globally diverse, our zeal for Christ and for His church, it must not change. That must not change. May our churches now and in the future, regardless of what nation you are in, be led by pastors who have an affectionate, infectious zeal for Jesus.

That's the first reason zeal is important. Here's the second one: Zeal for Christ is important, I believe, in this cultural and evangelical moment, which I'll speak about in just a moment. See, we can have zeal, brothers, for all the cultural, political, evangelical issues that are out there, by the way, whether they're from the left or from the right. We can express that zeal sometimes on social media, unintentionally communicating that we have more zeal for those things than we have zeal for Christ. May that not be. While not ignoring the issues that are outside of the church, we must not be absorbed by them, brothers. See, what's most important is not who's against us. What's most important is who is with us. Who is with us? It is Jesus.

See, when your people come in on Sunday morning, the first and foremost thing they need from you is not your take on a recent cultural issue. The most important thing they need from you is your zeal for Christ so that when you do talk about a cultural thing, that's where they find their hope. They find their hope in Jesus Christ. As Sovereign Grace becomes a multi-generational, globally diverse family of churches, may we be pastors who lead it with an obvious zeal for Jesus Christ.

Second fruit that I want to talk about, number two, abiding produces conviction to stand for truth.

Jesus says in verse 7, “if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” Abiding means that His words abide in us. What words is Jesus talking about? We get a clue from John 14:23, where Jesus says, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word." He emphasizes that by making a contrast in the next verse, John 14:24, "Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words." Jesus' words there, then, are all that He has taught us, and those who love Jesus are those that obey His words, and all of those words that He has taught us they're found here in the Word of God.

See, abiding in Jesus and His word and His words abiding in us, it produces conviction for the truth that we build our churches on and that we protect our churches with. That conviction drives our commitment each and every Sunday to preach God's word faithfully, calling our churches to obedience, and it drives our responsibility to protect our churches from false doctrine. Protecting churches from false doctrine is not a new thing. You see that throughout the New Testament epistles, you see it throughout church history. One of those moments in church history was actually 100 years ago when J. Gresham Machen wrote Christianity and Liberalism, in response to an attempt to unite 18 different denominations around a creed that was theologically ambiguous and was not faithful to the doctrine found in God's Word.

They released a 100th anniversary edition of Machen's book and Kevin DeYoung wrote in the introduction this:

"If there's one recurring theme throughout the book, it is that the Church of Jesus Christ cannot be sustained, and indeed, never was founded on doctrinal, indifferentism."

That's an important sentence.

"From the very beginning Machen argues the Christian movement was not only a way of life, but a way of life founded upon a message."

Here is a quote by Machen,

"It was based not upon mere feeling, not upon a mere program of work, but upon an account of facts. In other words, it was based on sound doctrine."

The Church of Jesus Christ, including Sovereign Grace churches, will only be sustained by abiding in the sound doctrine that is found in the Word of God.

Now in his foreword, Kevin DeYoung… by the way, if you don't have the book, it's worth buying the book just to get the foreword… Kevin DeYoung gives seven lessons that we can learn from Machen's work.

Let me just point you to one, and it's this: It is not enough to say what is true, we must also make clear what is false. Given this cultural moment, that is an important lesson for us, brothers. Because stating what is true and making clear what is false is vital to protecting our churches from any attempt to make what is false true, and that's what we're seeing in the culture.

Our culture is normalizing what is false and making it true. It's just one of the reasons that Rosaria Butterfield wrote her new book, Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age. In her introduction of that book, she says that there was, in her opinion, a seismic shift here in the States, first in 2015, when the US Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in the Obergefell decision, and again in 2020 in the Bostock case, ruling that the denial of LGBTQ+ rights represents an attack on the human dignity of people who identify this way.

Butterfield, she says this, I put this in your outline,

"After Obergefell and Bostock, LGBTQ+ describes who someone is rather than how someone feels. Freudian ideas about sexuality replaced biblical ones and became the new and preferred anthropology."

See, in this cultural moment, the world is normalizing an unbiblical anthropology. If you look at the cultural issues here in the States, that's a lot of our problem is anthropology. It's an unbiblical anthropology and that's what the world is normalizing. Therefore, in her book, Butterfield states what is true and makes clear what is false by addressing lies - lies like homosexuality is normal, lies like transgenderism is normal -and she's doing that because she has a conviction to stand for the truth.

Joel Beeke, in his endorsement of Butterfield's book, he writes this.

"The world is always trying to replace Christianity with a spiritual counterfeit that is another religion entirely, as J. Gresham Machen pointed out a century ago. Rosaria Butterfield exposes today's ideologies that seek to force the church into the mold of sexual perversion and self-deification. She reminds us that the answer to these soul-destroying lies remains the same as it always was, knowing and abiding, and abiding in God's word."

Brothers, by abiding in Christ and by abiding in His word, we must protect our churches by stating what is true and making clear what is false. That responsibility is becoming more complex in this current evangelical moment. If things happening in the culture, at the same time, there are things happening in evangelicalism. I'm sure you've noticed this. Evangelicalism seems to be fracturing and there are pressures on the church, again, from both the left and the right that we as pastors face.

Here's a question that we have wrestled with as a leadership team: How do we as a leadership team, how do we as Sovereign Grace view this current evangelical moment as it relates to Sovereign Grace?

We don't pretend to know all that God is doing in this current evangelical moment, and we don't know how the dust will settle. Here's what we do see, and I'm sure you probably agree with this observation, we see theological erosion and instability that is happening at a rate that concerns us as a leadership team.

If you add to that the influence of social media, that amplifies the differences in evangelicalism, whether those are from the right or from the left, it makes leading much more of a challenge. Even though we don't pretend to know all that God is doing in this evangelical moment, here's what we do know: Given the pace of theological erosion, and just take complementarianism for example, it's striking to me just personally as one individual pastor, as one individual leadership team member, it's striking how complementarianism has eroded in evangelicalism over the last two years, fairly quickly.

Here's what we do see: Given the pace of theological erosion, complementarianism being one example, we as pastors must exercise theological leadership and discernment to protect our churches, to guard our unity, and to prepare for our future.

See, providing theological leadership now is very important, not only because it's an immediate need, but we need to do it now for our long-term future as well.

It was two or three weeks ago, I was sitting in an elders meeting at Covenant Fellowship Church. We were kicking this around a little bit, and my fellow elder Jared Torrance, he asked this question, “Where will Sovereign Grace be theologically three generations from now?” It's a good question. Then he said this, “How strong will our complementarian convictions be?” He's asking that question as a younger pastor because he's concerned about younger generations in our churches, and in Covenant Fellowship in particular, will they be as strong in our complementarian convictions? It's the right question to ask.

Given the influence of the culture and the theological erosion that we're seeing in evangelicalism, those are the questions, brothers, and I want to ask you senior pastors to lead in a discussion to ask those questions.

Where will your church be theologically three generations from now? Add JT's question: How strong will your complementarian convictions be?

That's the first reason this is important.

Second reason, Orthodox Christians, including members of our churches, are feeling marginalized.

They're being described as bigoted, and they may think they're beginning to lose influence in this culture today. Some of you are shaking your heads because you've had those conversations with your people. This is a trend that we must prepare our people for so they will remain faithful to God's Word. Brothers, prepare your people to remain faithful to the ancient paths, the ancient paths of sound doctrine, despite the pressures they feel, despite the marginalization they feel, because if they stay on that path, there is no need to panic.

Andrew Wilson, in his new book, Remaking the World says this,

"Loss of influence is not a cause for panic. The doctrines, experiences, and practices that the church needs today are much the same as the ones she needed in the 18th century and in the 10th and in the 2nd. We are responsible for obedience, not outcomes. Faithfulness, not fruit. If we do not see the results we used to by praying and worshiping, reading scripture, serving the poor, preaching the gospel, sharing the sacraments, and loving one another, we carry on with those things regardless and walk by faith and not by sight.

Amen?

Brothers, teach your people to walk by faith by being faithful to God's infallible word. Tell them there is no need to panic because regardless of how the culture goes, regardless of how evangelical goes, we are people and we are churches who hang onto our Bibles and we remain faithful to the word of God, knowing that God will accomplish all that He has promised. Amen?

Now, one other thought before I leave this point. In any discourse where we are standing for truth, it's important that we communicate in a gracious, Christ-like tone. We don't want to sound like the world that is out there. I love this pithy sentence from DeYoung, “Courtesy wherever possible, clarity at all costs.” In other words, tone matters. It matters, not just in what we say, but what we type on social media. We must be gracious in our speech, and in doing so, we've got to be clear. We've got to be clear on what's true and we've got to be clear on what's false. As Sovereign Grace changes, becoming a multi-generational, globally diverse family of churches, may we not change in our conviction to stand for the truth.

Third fruit. Abiding produces Christ-like churches.

As Sovereign Grace becomes a multi-generational, globally diverse family of churches, we want to continue to build Christ-like churches. That's why the pruning imagery there in the text is so important. Did you see it in verse 2? Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, He, meaning the Father, prunes that it may bear more fruit.

Pruning cuts away. It takes away the things that are not of Christ so that we will bear more fruit from Christ. It's why John wrote this later in one of his epistles, no one who abides in Him, meaning Christ, keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him. Building churches that are growing in Christ's likeness, it reveals that we know Him and it reveals that we love Jesus.

Here's what I want you to consider today, guys: Every sermon you preach on every Sunday morning, and every other teaching context, the Father uses to prune. He prunes and He sanctifies the garden in your church, your church members, so that they will bear more fruit. He does that because the ordinary obedience of ordinary pastors and ordinary churches is a powerful weapon in the hands of God.

In an article entitled A Return to Counter-Cultural Sexuality, Jonathan Swan wrote this in the Spring 2023 Icon Journal. He said,

"Record of the early church's counter-cultural witness has been preserved in an anonymous letter written by an unknown Christian apologist to an unknown person named Diognetus. This ancient defense of Christianity contrasts Christian belief and worship with Greco-Roman Polytheism and Judaism. In the letter, the apologist tells Diognetus that it was the ordinary conduct of Christians that stood out. They marry, as do all others. They beget children, but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh."

He's saying ordinary obedience to Christ was a counter-cultural thing historically. Guess what? Today it remains a very counter-cultural thing in our day as well. Swan says this,

"Whether the issue is abortion, divorce, cohabitation, marital infidelity, homosexuality, so-called same-sex marriage, or the legion, pun intended, of issues associated with gender ideology, the church today has the opportunity to present itself once again as a true counterculture, and Christians should seize this opportunity to communicate and demonstrate the fullness of the gospel as a better, richer, fuller, more satisfying way of life."

Ordinary obedience in an extraordinary time is counter-cultural because it demonstrates the fullness of the rich gospel life that is far better and far satisfying. As we become a multi-generational global family of churches, let us continue to build Christ-like churches.

Fourth fruit: Abiding produces and protects our gospel heritage.

You know this call by Jesus to abide in Him is given the night before His death, His death on the cross for our sins, and before His resurrection three days later accomplishing, as you know, the work of salvation. Because of CJ's leadership in particular, that work of the cross has been central to our gospel culture that we have built together for 40 years. It has given us a gospel heritage that we pray endures in the future, even as we become multi-generational. You see, the first-generation pastors, the founding generation pastors of Sovereign Grace, here's what we want the second and third-generation pastors to know. We want you to protect and promote our gospel heritage so that our churches will continue to remain gospel-centered in the future.

You're familiar with this quote from D.A. Carson. He said,

”The church is never more than three generations from losing the gospel. One generation to believe it and proclaim it, a second generation to assume it, and a third to lose it.”

Assuming upon the gospel, it happens subtly over time. It's not these striking events. Therefore, brothers, we must be vigilant to address any subtle drift in your church and in our family of churches that erodes our gospel centrality and our gospel culture. That's why the shaping virtues are so important because the shaping virtues are the fruit of the gospel that we want people to see in our lives as they walk into our churches, and they're helpful because they can detect any shift, any slide in gospel centrality, and an erosion of a gospel culture.

It's on this point that I want to share with you a concern I have as the executive director. I have a concern, brothers, that we are losing the virtue of encouragement in our churches.

Whether it's the influence of the culture or we are just growing lax and looking for evidences of grace in others, I don't think we are as strong at encouraging one another as we used to be.

See, encouraging one another is important, not only because scripture says encourage one another daily, it's important in protecting any drift from gospel centrality in our culture. It's why we had Jared publish an entire journal on the virtues. It's why we've asked Ben Kreps to do a breakout session on our shaping virtues. Brothers, here's what I'm asking you: Make sure that you are teaching your churches biblically what it means to encourage one another and you encourage them and encourage them to encourage one another.

See, as Sovereign Grace becomes a global, multi-generational family of churches, we must not lose the gospel and we must not lose the culture that the gospel creates.

Fifth fruit. Abiding produces future pastors, so any contemplation about the gospel fruit that we will produce by abiding in Jesus has future generations in view, and those future generations will need to hear the gospel preached to them.

Therefore, they will need pastors. Again, another concern I bring as executive director, I feel this very urgent responsibility to prepare us for our future, and I want to share some stats with you that I hope stir in you the same urgency that I have. Here are those stats. I believe I put them in your outline.

Over the next 5 to 10 years, the first generation of Sovereign Grace pastors will transition primary leadership of our churches to the second and third-generation pastors.

We have 294 Sovereign Grace pastors in our database, of those for whom we have a birthdate, which is 207.

Here's the breakdown, generated at least by decade.

56 pastors 60 and older

42 pastors in their 50s

60 in their 40s

39 in their 30s

10 in their 20s

Get this, 47%, almost half of our pastors, are in their 50s and 60s.

That means that in the next decade, 5 to 10 years, there will be a transition of those pastors to the next generation in the primary leadership of our churches.

I don't believe this is a transition we are prepared for. We must urgently, and I want to urge you to fulfill 2 Timothy 2:2, that you would equip faithful men to do the work of gospel ministry. Brother, we've got to have the heart of the apostle Paul. Paul, he just had this heart for young men. You know this, one of those young men was Timothy, and Paul, he took risk on Timothy. We were told that Timothy was younger in 1 Timothy 4:12. He had these physical challenges, frequent ailments, as it says in 1 Timothy chapter 5:23, so Paul didn't wait until Timothy was risk-free, rather, no, Paul invested into him and he developed him and he deployed him into Gospel ministry.

”We must urgently, and I want to urge you to, fulfill 2 Timothy 2:2, that you would equip faithful men to do the work of gospel ministry. Brothers, we've got to have the heart of the apostle Paul.

Paul, he just had this heart for young men. You know this, one of those young men was Timothy, and Paul, he took risk on Timothy. We were told that Timothy was younger in 1 Timothy 4:12. He had these physical challenges, frequent ailments, as it says in 1 Timothy chapter 5:23, so Paul didn't wait until Timothy was risk-free, rather, no, Paul invested into him and he developed him and he deployed him into Gospel ministry.”

I was talking recently with CJ about this because he's our founder. He's got a different view than I have of our history, and I was asking CJ, what has happened over 40 years? Seems like earlier days, we had more guys interested, now we don't. Here's what he said to me. He said, in the earlier years, given the abundance of guys who were desirous of pursuing pastoral ministry, it didn't require recruiting, but as time passed, for various reasons, the number of guys who were inclined to pursue pastoral ministry declined. We didn't give ourselves to recruiting for the pastor's college for reasons like the finances, the 10-month relocation, and the inaccurate assumption that the local church could equip a man for ministry as effectively as the pastor's college.

Then he says this, “now, I am actively recruiting guys, and at 70, I am more apt to take risks than when I was younger, given the proven effectiveness of the pastor's college, and I want to do that for the sake of the gospel and for the planting of churches.”

I think CJ's right. We must take thoughtful risks now to actively recruit men for pastoral ministry so that we are prepared for a future that is right upon us actually.

A decade goes by quick, guys, and so I urge you to make recruiting and developing young men for pastoral ministry a priority and send them to the pastor's college so that they will be equipped for ministry. In fact, if you got young guys you even wonder about that aren't ready for the pastor's college, send them to Relay. That's why we're having the Relay Conference. There are meetings before Relay for men who are interested in pastoral ministry. Men that you may be thinking of now that aren't registered for Relay, get them there so that we can be prepared for our future.

Now, in fulfilling 2 Timothy 2, you don't need to recreate the wheel because we have churches who have leadership development, pastoral development programs that you can just benefit from. I gave you in your packet today, the Sovereign Grace Church Louisville's Leadership Pipeline that's available to you. If you want more information on that, you can contact Steve Whitaker. I will be forming, after the conference, a place on our website where I'll put other leadership development programs from other churches so that they're accessible to you and that you can use them. In other words, you just need to recruit and we'll help you figure out how to get them developed, all right? Brothers, we must do all we can now to prepare men for ministry so that Sovereign Grace can actually be a multi-generational family of churches. Amen.

Sixth fruit. Abiding produces faith to plant churches. Jesus says in Verse 5, that if we abide in Him, and He in us, we will bear not just fruit, He says much fruit. We see evidence of that much fruit historically in Sovereign Grace by taking risks to plant churches to reach the lost with the gospel. It is something that we see presently, in our family of churches now, men who are willing to take risks to plant churches.

Earlier I thanked the pastors here in the States for how you have served our brothers in churches outside of the States. Now I want to thank the pastors outside of the United States because you men are providing for us an example of faith to take risk to plant churches.

Michael Granger, Josh, it was risky to plant a church in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Who knew if it was going to work? Yet there is much fruit coming out of that church, much fruit coming out of that pastor's college. Thank you for your example.

Jeffery Jo, it's risky to plant in the Mindanao region of the Philippines because it's Muslim, populated, and because of tribal conflicts. It's actually dangerous to plant churches there, and yet, you continue to plant churches there, Jeff, thank you.

Dyonah Thomas, thank you for planting in Waterloo, Sierra Leone, sending Francis to do so. Again, a nation that's highly populated by Muslims. Francis, he's going to face opposition and persecution, but that doesn't deter Francis's faith or Dyonah's faith. Thank you, Dyonah, for your example to take risks to plant churches.

Ed O'Mara in Torino, Italy, where it is dark spiritually, and Carlos, and the brothers in Mexico, the church that you just planted in Reynosa. Reynosa is a tough place from what you told me. Gang-infested city, it's dangerous, and you men have faith to plant churches there.

We've got a rich history and we have men who are good examples of risks that we can take to plant churches.

Given our history and given all that's happening outside of the United States globally, many of you have asked me this question. Why is our growth here in the United States slower than outside of the United States? Could it be the effect of enduring a decade of crisis filled with difficult departures, false accusations and unjust criticisms, and in response, we've just become more cautious, probably. Could it be that in that same decade, we see a shift to an anti-Christian, post-truth culture here in the States that makes church planting riskier and more difficult? Possibly.

Consider what God has done in this past decade. God helped us to write and approve an updated statement of faith so that Sovereign Grace is stronger theologically than we ever have been. In that decade, He helped us write and ratify our polity and BCO so that Sovereign Grace has greater ecclesiological clarity. See, that's important because we've seen recently, certainly here in the States, we've seen movements who have planted a lot of churches, but they've not defined themselves theologically, nor do they have the same ecclesiological clarity.

Now, that's not a path that we've chosen to go down, right? The path that we have chosen, the path of theological definition and ecclesiological clarity can't be an excuse for the lack of church planting. Rather, those are good reasons to plant churches. See, I wonder if for whatever reason here in the States, we've lacked faith in God to take thoughtful risks to plant churches despite the obvious challenges we face. That's what I wonder.

Will Sovereign Grace continue to be unjustly criticized? Maybe. Probably. What does God say, "No weapon fashioned against you shall stand." Isaiah 54:17. Will it be difficult planting churches in an anti-Christian age? Of course. Here's what God says, Paul asked it rhetorically. Let's ask it of one another. "If God is for us, who is against us?" Is it risky to send pastors and your best leaders and your best givers on church planning teams? Yes, it's insane, right, but it is God who will supply your every need. Philippians 4:19.

We will only have faith to take risks to plant churches by abiding in Jesus who says in verse 7, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you." To the brothers here in the United States, do we wish to plant more churches? Yes, we do, don't we? Then let us ask. Let us ask Jesus Through faith-filled prayers for the planters and resources and locations to plant churches. Let's have faith in Jesus to sow out our best leaders and our best givers, believing His words, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send, to sow out laborers into the harvest."

Let us with faith in Jesus plant more churches here in the States despite the challenges that are happening in our culture, trusting our victorious Savior who said very confidently, "I have come to build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." Brothers let's go and plant churches. Amen.

I'm going to end with a quote from Mr. Spurgeon.

"Without me, you can do nothing,"

He's quoting Jesus.

"Be it so, brethren.

Are you not all agreed?

Do you wish to have it altered, any of you that love his dear name?

I am sure you do not, for suppose, dear friends, we could do something without Christ and He would not have the glory of it? Who wishes that? There would be little crowns for our poor little heads for we should have done something without Him.

Now there is one great crown for that dear head which once was girt with thorns.

For all His saints put together cannot do anything without Him.

Let Him be crowned with majesty who worketh in us both to will and to do of His own good pleasure."

Brothers, apart from Christ, we can do nothing.

We wouldn't want it any other way, right? By abiding in Jesus and depending on Jesus, we can become a multi-generational global family of churches that bears much fruit for the gospel, and all for the one who was crowned with majesty and honor and glory. Amen.