Sound Doctrine, Strong Faith | Jason Gore

Well, what's going on? Whole

family. Hi, good to be with you.

A quick truth for you right outta the gate.

If the map is wrong, the journey goes wrong. Okay?

Anybody ever been doing business with a bad map before?

Anybody? Yeah. So, uh, here's the deal.

For those of you who are considerably younger than I am, uh,

there was a day where, uh, before we had Apple CarPlay

and these cellular phones

that were kinda like many computers

where we actually had these paper maps, if we didn't know

where it was that we wanted to go, and they would fold up

and they could fit in their glove box, okay?

Now, I remember my dad when I was young, he said, listen,

son, this is something you need to know.

Anytime you're gonna drive in your car somewhere, you need

to make sure you have your road atlas with you.

And I, I didn't

understand it, but I thought it was really cool.

I mean, the thing was like this thick,

and I thought, anytime we need to make a break for it

and had to Ontario, Canada, like we are set,

we got everything that we need.

But then something happened, uh,

and this website called MapQuest was invented.

And what would, what what you did was you would use your

dial up internet, uh, dial up internet goes

to the phone lines, phone lines

or these things that we, okay, so here's what happened.

Uh, you go to this website

and you, you put in your current location,

and then you put in, uh, where your final destination is,

and you hit enter, and then it would print out,

it would show you the exact directions of where you wanted

to go, every single street name,

how long you were on each one of those streets.

But then, because our computers were still as big

as our telephones or as big as our televisions

and had to stay plugged

into the wall, you'd have to print it out.

And then you'd get like five

sheets of paper that looked like this.

And it was still pretty dangerous

because inevitably, like they're on the floorboard

and you're trying to drive and

you're trying to find out what they are.

That's not the point of this.

What the point is, is sometimes you would find roads would

be closed, and then sometimes, uh, you would find

that maybe roads could change before maps could be rewritten

or, or before the software could really be updated.

And if you didn't have a compass

or if you didn't have, uh, the knowledge to leverage the sun

and the stars is navigational beacons,

like there was a good chance you were gonna get

turned around and get lost.

And, and the point is this, the directions that we trust,

they shape where we end up.

And that's true in life as well.

And, uh, what we believe life is about, like

what we believe, who God is, what, where we believe

that our hope comes from, it forms this kind

of internal map inside of us.

And if we're honest, a lot of us are going through life

with these maps that are formed by who knows what.

Uh, there's these cultural maps that tell us, Hey,

just be true to yourself.

Like you can find your own truth.

Uh, there's these religious maps that say, Hey,

just try harder, right?

Uh, do better and maybe one day you'll be good enough.

Or maybe there's no map at all.

We're just kind of going through life

hoping that we don't fall off a cliff.

And I got a story about that a little bit later.

But, but what if, uh, the, the only way

that we're going to experience a life of, of, of peace

and of hope and of belonging

and purpose was by following a map that God, our creator,

actually provided for us and gave to us, uh, a w Tozer.

He was a theologian from, uh, the mid 19 hundreds

for those of us that were born in the 19 hundreds,

that should make us feel just a little bit old.

Uh, but he's quoted as saying this,

what comes into our minds when we think about God is the

most important thing about us.

And so that's why we're gonna be kicking off this series,

uh, of this tiny welcome

through this tiny letter in the New Testament called Titus.

Okay? It's three chapters long, uh,

and what I want you to do is, is we're calling the, the,

the series field notes.

So I want you to think about this as field notes

for the Journey of Life.

And it's written by a seasoned mentor, Paul, the kind

of his understudy and the faith Titus.

And the letter is really about how right thinking leads

to right belief, and then right belief

leads to right living.

Um, we've subtitled the series, this,

and this kind of sums it up.

Good doctrine leads to Godly living.

And I'm almost hesitant to use that word doctrine

because I know anytime you use a word like theology

or doctrine, it can feel like, wait a minute,

that feels a little bit staunchy.

That feels a little bit heady.

I want to demystify these words

for us a little bit like theology.

It really just means the study of God. That's it.

And then doctrine. When we say doctrine,

that's really just the implications of our study

of God lived out through our faith and our personal lives,

and then collectively as the body of Christ.

So this letter starts out with this one powerful idea.

Sound doctrine matters

because it shapes the way that we live our lives.

And so if you've got your Bibles,

I wanna encourage you go ahead and turn, uh, over

to Titus chapter one.

And, uh, I'm gonna give us just a little bit

of context here, uh, for the letter.

So Paul is the author of this letter. He was a Jewish man.

Uh, he grew up in the Jewish faith.

He was extremely well-trained in the scriptures, like

what we would refer to as the Old Testament in our Bible.

And was originally one

of the greatest persecutor of Christians.

Like he played a role in murdering those

who expressed belief in the resurrected Jesus.

And one day, Paul's, uh, walking on this road to Damascus,

essentially to arrest and

potentially even kill other Christians.

And then he's blinded by this light

and he falls down on his face, and then he hears this voice.

He can't see anything, but he hears a voice.

Say, Saul, his name was Saul before it changed to Paul.

He says, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And so Paul asks, who is speaking?

And this is what he hears, he hears, I am Jesus

whom you are persecuting.

And so Jesus speaks to him.

And you can read all about this in Acts chapter nine.

Now, this would've been crazy for Paul

because in Paul, in Paul's mind, Jesus had been crucified

and should have been in a tomb.

And he's persecuting those

who are declaring that Jesus is alive.

But from there, he can't see.

He's led to Damascus where he prays and fast for three days,

and then he meets a disciple of Jesus by the name of Ananias

who goes to him because Jesus tells him in a vision

to go meet this guy.

So Ananias has all kinds of guts, right?

Because he knows this guy's killed Christians.

But he's, he lays hands on him, he prays for him.

And then Saul regains his sight.

He believes that Jesus actually rose from the grave.

He's filled with the Holy Spirit, he gets baptized

and he becomes one of the greatest missionaries, uh,

in the name of Jesus that the world has ever known.

He goes out and immediately starts proclaiming

that Jesus has been resurrected from the dead.

So he goes from, from murdering Christians

to declaring the gospel publicly.

He lives this crazy life. He gets shipped direct.

He goes through all this stuff to plant these

churches all across the land.

And then he encourages

and equips them by writing them letters, uh, many

of which are what make up our New Testament.

Titus is one of those letters, as we mentioned

to his trusted partner, Titus,

who's been left on the island of Crete.

Uh, as, as the letter tells us, uh, to put things in order

and the, is there, uh, Crete was a wild place.

Um, I want you to think like Pirates

of the Caribbean meets Las Vegas, okay?

Like this. It's a nuts. So place.

Um, there's confusion, there's corruption, chaos.

But Paul knew this. He knew

that if those churches there were gonna thrive in

that environment, which I would argue is not all

that different than the world that we live in today.

If they're gonna thrive, they needed

more than good intentions.

Like they needed a gospel framework.

They needed a doctrine for godliness, for leadership,

and for the mission that it was, that God had for them.

And in the first four verses,

which is all we're gonna unpack this week,

we're just gonna go through the greeting, which by the way,

I would encourage you, we're gonna be in this three chapter

letter for about six to eight weeks.

I would encourage you, read this thing every day.

You can get through these three chapters pretty quickly.

But let's read through this together as the family

of God regularly.

If there's something you don't understand,

uh, we're gonna be talking about it.

So let's do that together.

But in the first four verses,

what he unpacks is why truth matters

and actually what it's meant to produce for us in our lives.

Uh, before we open God's word, I I just wanna pray for us.

Uh, father, I believe that so much

of this letter, um, elevates the importance

of leaning into, um, your word, the Bible

that you have given to us.

And so, as we spend time just unpacking this thing, verse

by verse and, and leaning into what it was that we believe

that you gave to Paul, uh, to speak to Titus

and to the churches there and Crete, and also to us.

Lord, I pray that your spirit would do in our lives

what I could never do.

Um, would you help us to see you for who you are?

Would you help us to learn more about you?

Would you help us to, to get grounded deep in the truths of

who you are and what you desire for us in our lives?

We love you. We pray these things in Jesus' name.

All God's people said, amen.

Okay, starts out Titus chapter one, verse one.

It says, Paul, a servant of God

and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

Notice how Paul introduces himself.

He, he doesn't say, Hey, uh, this is Dr. Paul here, uh,

author of the majority of the New Testament.

He doesn't say that there's no ego here.

He's just a servant. This is a man under the orders of God.

He's saying, I don't own this truth

that I'm about to share with you.

I just steward it. I'm not here to tell you my opinion.

I'm here to share with you on behalf of God,

understand I am sent by Jesus.

I'm an apostle of Jesus. But these are God's words.

And in a world where leaders don't

always get the best reputation, Paul reminds us here

that true godly leadership, it starts

with submission to God.

Uh, he's not the originator of the message.

He is the messenger under the authority sent

by Jesus with a purpose.

And, and you could be here at any of our campuses,

you could be joining with us online and,

and you could have been burned

by a religious leader at some point.

Um, who seems more interested in power than in people.

And what Paul's saying here, what he's modeling is

that Christian leadership is marked by humble service, not,

not a personal platform.

He's saying it's marked by character, not charisma.

And that I think that's important for you to hear

because here at hope we teach the Bible period.

I mean, we believe that it is the, uh, in air,

the authoritative word of God.

We don't shy away from hard truths.

But I want you to know it doesn't come from

a manipulative place.

It doesn't come from a place of judgment.

It comes from a place of believing

what I said at the very beginning.

If the map is wrong, the journey goes wrong.

And, and out of love for you, out of care for you, out

of love for this church, out of love for the the people

around us in our everyday lives,

we have a calling on us from God to elevate sound doctrine

that you and that we can build our lives on.

Because good doctrine leads to godly living.

So Paul, a servant of God

and an apostle of Jesus Christ, he goes on to say,

for the sake of the faith of God's elect,

who are God's elect, these are God's people.

This is the family of God. This is the church.

This is sons and daughters of God.

These are those who God has chosen, uh, any of us

who have called on the name of Jesus for salvation,

for the sake of the faith of God's elect

and their knowledge of the truth,

which accords with godliness.

Paul's getting into the why, uh, really of his mission

and ultimately this letter, uh,

and he's saying it's for the church to have faith.

He's saying, I want you to have the knowledge of the truth.

Why? Because it leads to godliness in our lives.

Just because without sound doctrine, without the knowledge

of the truth, we don't really have an idea of

what we're supposed to put our faith in.

Like much less do we have an opportunity

to live our lives the way that God created us to live.

And so what he's saying is doctrine.

It's not just information. It's for transformation.

Like we're not just trying to build up head knowledge.

We we're, we're studying God's words so that we can engage

with this tree so that it can shape how we live our lives.

I want you to imagine two trees.

Uh, one of them is planted by a river,

and then one of them them's planted in the middle

of a dry field, okay?

Over time, um, one of them is gonna grow.

One of them is gonna thrive, one

of them is gonna produce fruit

and the other one's gonna dry up.

Why is that? It's the root system

that's doctrine.

Like that's the root system of our life.

If it's shallow or if it gets fed the wrong things,

like it's gonna show up in our relationships,

it's gonna show up in our marriages,

it's gonna show up in the decisions that we make,

it's gonna show up in our desires.

And you understand,

like the world is gonna throw stuff at us all the time.

It's not going to lead to a place of of faith.

It's not gonna take us to the places in life

that we've been created to go.

It's not gonna take us towards the plans

and purposes that God has for us and our lives.

And so I want you to ask yourself this question, is

what I believe about God positively shaping my life?

And I know that's the question that's up on screen.

'cause that's the question that I gave

to the communications team.

But as I'm sitting here right now,

I'm wondering maybe a better question is, do the roots

of my life dig down deep enough to enough sound doctrine

to actually move me in the direction

that God has for me in my life?

And if not, what changes do I need to make?

What decisions do I need to make?

So Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ,

but the sake of the faith of God's elect for us

and their knowledge of the truth which

accords with godliness.

So we're transformed.

Why in hope of eternal life, which God

who never lies promised before the ages began.

You read that like in hope of eternal life.

Uh, if you're like me, you can read that and be like, hope.

Like that sounds a little bit like wishful thinking.

I wish it was something a little more concrete like, um,

with our confidence in eternal life, like the,

that word in the Greek

and the way it's used throughout scripture,

it's not like hope, like a wish and a prayer.

It kind of represents a,

a confident expectation rooted in God's character

and in his promises.

Uh, I have a, an 85 pound German shepherd.

And every day at 6:00 AM

and at 6:00 PM he's standing

by a large stainless steel bowl, uh,

because he has hope that the ones that care

for him are gonna take a plastic cup of food out

of his food bag and bring it over and put it in.

I would say that his hope, it's not like just now,

Pavlov might disagree with me,

but it's not just in something that maybe he's hopeful

for wishful thinking like it is based in this confident

expectation as if he can actually think this well rooted in

what he probably thinks is the character

and the faithfulness of his owners.

Now, I hope that our, our faith in who God is

and his character and his promises is far

deeper than what my dogs is.

But I just want you to understand,

it's this confident expectation.

We show up every day.

We get up out of bed every day

with this confident expectation that we have this hope

of eternal life despite the situations

and circumstances that we find ourselves in.

How can we have that hope?

Whether you know it or not, Paul's about to tell us.

He he's actually teaching theology right now.

He's teaching doctrine right now.

He's teaching about God, which we've already said.

If we don't learn about God, we can't experience a life

of faith and godliness.

What he says is this hope that I want

to impart to you in your life.

It comes from a God who's truthful. He never lies.

This is not wishful thinking. This is a promise.

And you're gonna see later in the letter, this is kind

of like a, um, a subtle

but direct shot at the Crete culture.

Um, it was famous for lying.

In fact, there's a statement that we'll read in, in,

in a couple weeks where, uh, that we find out that

to act like a Creon,

it was really s slang for being deceptive.

And while you could just kinda read over that think, well,

yeah, that was for Titus and that was

for the churches there in Crete.

Uh, what I wanna warn you of is this.

It's the same in our culture. Our culture is deceptive.

It will lie to you. It it will whisper to you

that your worth is wrapped up in your possessions.

It will tell you that your value

and your satisfaction in life is only gonna come

from what you can accumulate.

Um, it's gonna tell you that, um, you can determine

for yourself what is better for you, more so than God can.

And you can declare that truth for yourself and your life.

It's gonna tell you that you have to earn your way towards

what it is that you need in your life

that's ultimately gonna bring you satisfaction.

And that's a lie. This world is deceiving.

And so the knowledge of the truth

that Paul's talking about here, uh, the faith

that he wants us to be filled

with this, the hope of eternal life.

This is the gospel message.

It's not something that you have to strive to gain.

It's something that's been promised.

It's something that Jesus has taken care of

and that Jesus has offered to us that all we have

to do is freely receive.

Paul saying, you've heard a lot of lies,

but this message, this is sound doctrine.

This is something that you can dig down deep with the roots

of your life and you can find hope.

And so I wanna give you a field note here at the name

of the series is Field Notes.

I wanna give you a field note, sound doctrine.

It allows us to have eternal hope in the midst

of our temporary hustle.

Um, I I can't preach to you a sermon

that's gonna take away your need to hustle in this life.

Like it's just gonna happen.

Like we can do self-care and we can do all this stuff,

but the reality is there's times in

our lives where we just gotta hustle.

We just gotta grind. I can't preach any message

that's gonna take away the troubles from your, our lives

that Jesus ultimately tells us is gonna come our way.

Um, there's no sermon that I can preach to undo, uh,

the wrong or the betrayal

that you faced from a man or a woman in your life.

That there's no sermon that I can preach

to bring a loved one back to life.

I assure you if I could do that, I would do it for myself.

But what I can promise you is that through the building up

of our knowledge of truth and devoting ourselves

to sound doctrine, we can find a map

that's gonna give us hope in the midst of the journey

that we find ourselves in.

That's what Paul's talking about here.

So how does this doctrine get rooted in us?

Paul goes on verse three and he says,

and at the proper time, it manifested in his word

through the preaching, which I Paul had been entrusted

by the command of our God, our savior.

Paul's telling Titus, Hey, this gospel,

this good news, this isn't new.

It was planned before the ages, but now it's been revealed.

And what he's talking about is the gospel, the life,

the death, the resurrection,

and the new life that we have available to us.

As a result of that, he's talking about

how even back in Genesis, um, when Adam

and Eve disobeyed God,

and there was this separation between man and woman,

and between God and between one another, God said in

that moment, okay, Satan, you've messed this up.

You've created an environment

for this thing to get messed up.

And, and all of mankind is gonna experience this

for a long time, but through her offspring,

I'm gonna make a way for one to come to be born,

to ultimately put all this brokenness back together again.

And then you see these prophecies all

through the Old Testament again.

God is faithful to his promises.

All of these prophecies are fulfilled.

Jesus shows up on the scene.

He lives the life that we never could have lived.

He goes to the cross and pays the penalty that we deserve

to pay as a result of our sins.

He goes into a tomb, he's raised from the dead three days

later so that we can have new life, so

that we can have this hope of eternal life.

And what Paul is saying is, the way this hope is spread is

through the word, it's through preaching.

And it's not just preaching.

When a pastor gets up with a Bible in front of a, a group

of people, um, it's when the word is shared together

as the family of God.

When we all get together, he's saying it's learned

and believed and it shaves us through time

and the word through scripture, through preaching, yes,

but also through meditating on it,

through sharing it with one another.

And I do want you to hear me say this, uh,

we don't get together, um, on Thursday nights

or on Sunday mornings

because we don't have anything

better to do on a Sunday morning.

Um, it's in large part to proclaim the truth of the gospel

and sound doctrine so that we can come

to learn the knowledge of the truth so that it can

transform our lives.

It's for right theology, which by the way,

just our theology is what, uh, impacts our doctrine,

what it is that we believe,

but our theology also flows into our doxology,

how we actually respond to God and worship.

That's why when we get together sometimes, um,

we have a time in scripture, in in the word together,

but then we actually have a song after in response.

Some of you don't know that. 'cause as soon

as the prayer's over, you're kind of

heading out to the parking lot.

But, but we actually do that.

We sing and we celebrate and we respond to the goodness

and to the glory that's been revealed

to us through his word.

Like, we need to spend time together.

I need this in my life

as a 46-year-old man who's been following Jesus

for the better part of 40 years.

Like I need to be reminded

and have the truths of God put in my

heart and put on my lips.

We need to encourage one another.

As a church family, your neighbors need it,

your coworkers need it.

Your children need it.

So the field note here is the message of hope.

It shapes us through engaging God in his word.

And again, I'm gonna go back to that question.

If this is true, if this is the map that's gonna lead us

to the life that God ultimately has for us,

are we engaging God through his word?

You get to verse four. And, uh, Paul ends this greeting

by addressing Titus.

And, uh, this is so beautiful.

It, it's strong, but it's tender.

He says to Titus, my true child in a common faith.

And I just love Paul's heart here.

Which by the way, this should be the heart of every pastor,

whoever gets up and opens

God's word and shares it with the group.

And really every man or woman or, or son

or daughter of God, this is personal.

This isn't Paul writing in called doctrine.

He's writing to someone that he loves.

He's writing to someone that he believes in.

Like this is discipleship in motion.

One generation imparting God's truth in God's

word to another generation.

This is how the church should be lived out.

And, uh, we're gonna see this as we continue to, to move

through the text together over the upcoming weeks.

But a good portion of how sound doctrine is supposed

to be passed along is man to man.

It's woman to woman. It's from one generation,

older generation down to a younger generation.

It's not just coming. It is in part coming to a place

and it's someone opening God's word.

But it's not just that. It's generation to generation.

We've seen that all throughout scripture.

Um, you, this is probably a good place to mention this,

speaking of generation to generation, we're kind

of coming into a season right now where, uh, we got a ton

of high school students, uh, they call Hope Home.

And we've got some high school seniors

who are moving into a milestone moment in their lives

graduating from high school.

And so I just thought it would be appropriate just across

all of our campuses right now,

can we just celebrate our high school seniors

together, those big family?

I want you to hear me say we are proud of you.

Uh, this, uh, you, we do not believe

that you are the church of the future.

Uh, we believe you are the church now.

And, uh, while we're excited for you, uh, for graduating

high school, um, as you move on to college, as you move on

to a trade, whatever it is that your next steps are,

I want you to know as proud of you as we are for

what you've done already and what you're gonna do,

there is nothing that you can study in your life

that is gonna be more beneficial than actually getting into

God's Word and learning true

theology, learning sound doctrine.

If you wanna grow into the man

or the woman that God's created you to be,

this is where we need to spend time.

And so if you're moving off to college,

if you're going somewhere else,

the the first thing I want you

to do is go find a good Bible teaching church.

If you're staying here at Hope.

Uh, we've got a phenomenal college in young adults ministry.

Corey Paxton is an incredible

college and young adults pastor.

He is more than that. He's a great man.

He is a great husband, he's a great dad.

We would love to come alongside you

and continue to disciple you

and equip you for the life of ministry that God has for you.

But we should be investing in one another's lives

as any good father or good mother or good brother

or good sister would do as the life of their family.

So your field note here is this, on the journey

of faith, we're better together.

Who are you passing the baton of faith along to?

Who, who are you receiving the baton of faith to?

Who is it that you would call if you know you needed

something and your life?

A few weeks back, Heather Sullivan gave a message

on the importance of biblical community, um, is a part of

what it really means to follow Jesus.

And through that message, she gave you an opportunity, uh,

the the church really an opportunity to say, Hey,

I would love to find that sense

of belonging and purpose in my life.

And gave you an opportunity to say, Hey, I would love

to get connected into a small group, into a community group.

Um, you all responded.

And, uh, what we found was we ended

up having to do some math.

And what we found is, so hope is about 5,000 people in

average weekend attendance across all of our campuses.

What we figured when we mathed this thing was

if every single one of those men

and women raise their hand at the same time

and said, Hey, I wanted to get connected into a group.

We have about one open spot for every eight men

and women that would want to get into a group.

Um, if you're not good at math, those numbers don't work.

And so for us to be the type of church

that God's calling us to be,

that sound doctrine calls us into becoming,

it's gonna take men and women who are willing to stand

to step up and say, you know what?

I'll go first. I will do whatever it takes

to create an opportunity for this type

of biblical community to be created.

Where, where faith can be passed along from one man

to another, from one woman to another, from family

to family, from adult to child.

And I know that can sound intimidating,

but I want you to hear me say this like as your church,

Ephesians four says, it is our responsibility

to equip the church for the work of ministry.

We want to come alongside of you.

We're working on a, a discipleship

and leadership development right now, uh,

that we're gonna pilot through the summer

and then we're gonna pilot again in the fall.

And so if the Holy Spirit is stirring anything inside

of your life saying like, I, I don't know if I want

to do this, but I think I'm called to do it,

and I understand in scripture, we want you to let us know.

And so the way you do that is you can go to next steps

after the service, or right now on your phone,

you can text the word lead to 7 2 9 8 9.

Um, Heather Sullivan, one

of our associate pastors from your campus,

they will follow up with you.

But before we move on from this,

I also wanna say we've got a lot of small group leaders here

that you've probably been leading here for a while

and you're like, I don't know

that we've done the best job at

equipping our small group leaders.

And I want you to hear me say, uh, I agree with you.

Um, and so I want you to hear me own that.

Uh, I want to confess, uh, a potential sin of passivity

of not investing, uh, in our, in our small group leaders

and discipling the way that we should.

But if you hear me say that

and you're like, well, I'm out here doing this

and if you guys are serious about this thing,

I'm willing to give you one more shot.

I want you to reach out to us too. Same thing.

Text the word lead to 7 2, 9 8, 9.

Let's work together to build up the family of God

that we know that we need to be, uh, to, to lean in

to God's word together and challenge

and encourage one another to grow into the image of Christ.

Okay, so that's that.

I wanna close with a story 2003, myself

and Merri Lawn, who is the Athletes

and Action director at NC State.

So that's the ministry to varsity athletes at NC State.

And then us two, Colt Morton,

who was a catcher on the baseball team.

And Craig Moody,

who was the defensive back on the football team.

Uh, it was the end of wrestling season, so it was kind

of the end of February.

And we were kind of doing what guys do

and talking about how tough we were.

And it was Tuesday and we decided, Hey, uh,

why don't we go camping this weekend?

And it was like, yeah, let's go camping.

Where do you want to go? I don't know, somewhere tough.

Um, okay.

And so we started asking around

and we heard Linville Gorge is kind

of a tough place to go camping.

Um, we were really good athletes. We weren't good campers.

Um, so on Tuesday I thought, well,

if we're gonna go camping on Friday,

I guess I should go get some new boots.

So I went and got some new, some boots.

I borrowed a hiking backpack from somebody.

We took a tent, we took a couple tents, some sleeping bags,

a little bit of food, and as much water as we could carry.

And on Friday we drove to Linville Gorge.

Um, we hiked in

and we immediately noticed as we're walking

through the woods, like these, these

trails aren't marked all that well.

And we went a little further and we thought,

is this terrain gonna get any safer?

Like, we're literally walking alongside

of like cliffs looking down, thinking if one

of us fell, this is bad.

Like Colt was a catcher. He was like six four.

I'm like, I, I'm big.

I'm not getting you outta there if you fall.

And so then we set, we get down, we finally get down

after three and a half, four hours of,

of hiking, we get down to this river.

We have no idea where we are, but

we're guys, we can figure this out.

And um, but it's not really flat, okay?

Like the whole terrain is kind of sloped.

So we pitch a tent on a slope,

and uh, we go to bed, we start a fire, we go to bed,

we make up, wake up the next morning, everything's cool.

We spend some time reading our Bibles. We talk about life.

But as we get into that afternoon, we realize, okay,

we're running outta water a little bit.

We're gonna stay till Sunday though,

but we're starting to run outta water.

Can we drink the water in the river?

Probably not a good idea. And then it starts getting colder

than we anticipated.

And then the wind picks up.

I mean, it's howling through the trees.

And then snowflakes start to fall.

Like, man, did anybody check the weather?

I mean, it is the end of February.

And so we go in our tents,

and I'm saying, when I'm saying the wind was loud,

you started to hear limbs snap off.

It sounded like trees were falling, rolling down the hill.

You're like, could, could a limb or a tree fall

and run over our tent?

And I like opened the tent

to see if there were any trees blocked.

I was like, absolutely it could, it definitely could.

Finally fell asleep. Woke up at two 30 in the morning.

My feet were freezing.

I opened up my flashlight, turned on the light.

'cause we were down here. I'm like on a slope, right?

And my feet are down here

and there's like three inches of cold water in the tent.

'cause of course we didn't have a rain fly.

And it's like frozen, frothy water by the bottom

of my sleeping bag is soaked.

My, my socks are soaked.

So I kind of try to lay at an angle, which kind

of makes you roll down the hill, finally fall back asleep,

wake up the next morning, we get up,

there's about five inches of snow on the ground

in the snow with no trail markers.

It's hard to figure out how to get out.

And so we pack up camp,

we realize we're pretty much outta water,

and we hiked for about six hours, very lost.

And then somehow we get back to the car

and, uh, start heading back.

Um, just as a heads up, uh,

Craig ate snow off the side

of the mountain the whole time we were there,

even though I advised him against it, he ended up having

to go to the emergency room that night, was in the hospital

for five days with a bacteria infection.

He's okay. Now we can laugh about it.

Um, why do I tell you that?

Because we went into that unprepared.

If you Google is linville gorge dangerous?

Like you will get all kinds of warnings.

This is not a, we didn't have

Google back then, I don't think.

We didn't use it. But he would find like,

do not go into this place without maps.

The trails are not marked. Well, it would say, you need

to take these things with you when you go, being rescued out

of this place is difficult.

Why do I tell you this? Because my concern, like my heart,

is that so many of us in the church are going through life

and we're unprepared because we haven't rooted our lives

into the truth of God's word.

And Paul's saying, no, no, I'm writing this to you.

So, so that you can have knowledge of the truth so

that it will lead to godliness, to the life

that created you to live.

But if we don't root ourselves in God's word,

I'm gonna tell you from experience what's gonna happen.

You're gonna wake up one morning, metaphorically speaking,

and there's gonna be four inches of snow on the ground.

You're gonna be trying to go to bed at night, and the winds

and the storms are coming

whether you want 'em to come or not.

What, what do we do as followers of Christ?

If we're not rooted in God's word,

if the map is wrong, the journey goes wrong.

The directions that we trust, shapes where we end up.

The world will give us a map. But where is it leading?

So why does doctrine matter? It's not to make us smarter.

Uh, it's not to win arguments.

It's certainly not to impress people.

It matters because it leads to godliness.

It matters because it gives us an eternal hope in the midst

of whatever we find ourselves in our lives.

It matters because it came from God

and it was handed to us in love to experience life

ultimately, that Jesus came to make available

to us in our lives.

As we wrap up, I'm just,

I'm just gonna have you by your head.

And, um, I am believing this weekend that there is

some man or woman or student across all

of our campuses right now, maybe in this room right now,

maybe you're listening online, who is going through life

and recognizes, man, I've been going through this thing.

Like I have no idea where this map came from

that I'm following and I'm hoping for the best

and I'm coming up dry.

And if that's you, I want you to know there is a truth

that leads to life and it's found in Jesus.

And you might think, yeah, yeah,

yeah, but you don't know what I've done.

I've gone too far. You wanna talk about being on the right

path with the right map.

I am in a totally different state,

a totally different country, a totally different planet.

But that's the good news of the gospel.

It doesn't matter where you've been,

it doesn't matter what you've done.

Everything is level at the foot of the cross.

And if that's you, I wanna call you gently

but firmly into responding to the gospel.

And so I'm just gonna give you an invitation right now with,

with every head down, with every eye closed except for mine.

If that's you, right Now across all of our campuses,

and I know it could be weird, I'm on a screen,

but if that's you and you want

to step over into this new life following

after Jesus, I just would ask you, would you just,

would you just slip your hand in the air?

Yeah.

It is the best decision that

you could ever make in your life.

And I'm gonna ask you to do something bold here.

Um, and I know, again, it could be weird if I'm on a screen,

I'm just gonna ask you just to open your

eyes just to look up at me.

I just want you to pray this prayer after me.

Father, I recognize I've been doing life my own way.

I wanna make a decision to trust in Jesus

as my Lord and as my savior.

I recognize that he died on a cross for my sins,

and that he rose from the grave three days later

overcoming sin and death so that I could have new life.

Lord, help me to follow you.

Help the roots of my life to dig deep into doctrine,

into the knowledge of the truth, So

that we can be transformed into the image

of Jesus and everyone else.

Uh, I'm just gonna, to those of us in here who are followers

of Christ, um, I'm gonna give you an opportunity

to make a decision as well.

I want you to have a moment, and I want

you to ask yourself this question.

Am I intentionally pursuing scripture in a way

that can transform my life?

And if you're not, but you wanna make a declaration right

here, right now, maybe it's

through this series, something's gonna be different.

I'm gonna engage but with God through reading scripture.

If that is you, I want to pray for you.

And so if that's you, would you just raise your hand

up in the air right now?

Yeah. Yeah. Goodness gracious.

If thousands of men and women

and students would just take seriously the opportunity

that we have to engage God through scripture.

Father, I come to you and pray right now,

and I pray for these men and these women and these students.

Lord, I pray that your spirit would do a work in our heart

that, that I could never do through wise words

or that you would convict us, that you would put, um,

a desire for your word on our heart like honey on our lips.

And Lord, I pray that it,

we would not just grow in our knowledge of the truth,

but it'll be a knowledge of the truth

that leads to godliness.

That it would change our lives

or that we would be transformed into the image of Christ.

May we be a church God who intentionally pursues

the knowledge of the truth, Not just for the sake

of transformation in our own lives,

but also for the lives

of those whom you have placed around us.

Lord, we love you and we pray these things in Jesus' name.

All God's people said, amen.

Hey, listen, um,

Sam Cannoli here at the Raleigh campus, if you're joining

with us, uh, online

or at our other campuses, they we're playing,

this is the air I breathe earlier.

And you know, I mentioned to you,

our theology should shape our doctrine to our, our doctrine,

but our theology should form our doxology,

which is really our response in celebrating the goodness

and the glory of God.

And when I heard them singing

that song like this is my daily bread,

your very word spoken to me.

This is the air I breathe.

I thought, man, what a better song.

What a better response, Lord,

we need your word in this life.

Like we need the breath in our lungs.

And so I'm just gonna invite you

to stand across all of our campuses.

We're gonna join and we're gonna sing this together

as one big family of families.

I just wanna invite you to stand and sing.

This is the,

this is the

living in

Me,

My

on church.

I, you,

I I'm lost without you.

Let's say that again. And die. And

Die Desperate.

I'm desperate for you.

This is the air I've read. This is

spoken.

And

I

i am lost without

Sing, I'm lost Without you, I'm lost.

Without sing

that again, without

say, I can't live without you.

I can't live without you.

Say I'm desperate. I'm desperate for

one more time,

desperate for

God. You are a

provider

and you make a way out of the darkness, out

of the lostness through your son Jesus.

We give you thanks for that. And in His name we pray, amen.

We hope it has been a good time to be together.

I want to encourage you, as the Holy Spirit

of God has stirred anything in your heart

and your thoughts to, to make a move toward him

or maybe a move towards community.

Uh, don't, uh, don't leave the campus

that you're at without stopping

by next steps and having a conversation.

And if you're joining online

or listening later, uh,

don't leave without dropping a note in the chat

or texting the word follow to 7 2 9 8 9.

We'll be in touch with you. Uh, one more thing before we go.

As Jason mentioned, uh, celebrating all

of our graduating high school seniors across all

of our communities and all of our campuses.

And before we go, we just want

to pray a commissioning prayer over them.

And so if you're in the room with us

and you're near a high school senior,

and it's not gonna be too weird, I just encourage you,

like put a hand on a shoulder and pray with them.

Or if you're online, when you're get

to wherever you're going, send a text

to a high school senior and encourage them maybe

with some words from this prayer.

Would you join me in prayer? Father, you are so good

that you've called us into this family

of families called the church.

Uh, we are blessed as a church family to have

literally hundreds of high school students is a part

of this ministry that you've given us.

And we are blessed to have, uh, hundreds

of seniors graduating in our communities who are moving on

to what you have for them.

Next, uh, Lord, as a church, we work hard, uh,

to see these young men and women, uh,

have a personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that they own

for themselves and that they pass on to others.

And that is what we are commissioning them into

in the coming weeks, the coming months, in the coming years,

no matter what their accomplishments are,

that their greatest source of strength would be the truth

of your word and the power of your spirit

and the grace of your son Jesus Christ.

And their greatest energy

and efforts will be put toward bringing more people into the

family of God through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

May they be surrounded by godly men

and women wherever they go that would challenge them

and spur them on toward love and good deeds.

In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

Next week we'll continue our field note study in Titus.

We hope that you'll share this message with somebody

and we'll see you then.