The gift of Eldership

One of the amazing things the Bible says, you should recognize

the voice of your leaders. And actually those voices should

be safe voices. And we're doing a series through

the book of Titus. It's an amazing book.

And there's some challenges in the church.

There's some guys who are legalists, and there's some guys

that think the grace of God says you can do anything.

And I've been preaching so much grace.

There's some people in our home we think, well, Rory says we can

just do anything. And I said, I'm going to preach

until the place where people think they can do anything.

And then we're going to preach on Titus.

It says you're actually not allowed to do anything when I

said no. So we're going to call this

series Titus in November. So but I think this series would

be would be the word no. So God is a God of big yes and

small no. And when he says no, he means

no. And it's because he's good, not

because he's bad. And say no to a second bowl of

ice cream. And they say, Rory, you've got

to carrying a few extra KGS, but I'm carrying less than I was a

few years ago. And so we're just on a journey

of trying to build a community that honours God so we can put

those four trees up. Please.

I'll try and explain titles to you if you've got that video.

Top left hand side is just the way the world works.

There's a root system or a belief system or a OTS, and that

root system affects the roots or a UTES that we take.

So on the left hand side, Christian root system, we have a

belief system. It's what Jesus has done for us.

It's what we believe. We are saved.

We are saved by grace, we are born again, we've been redeemed,

we've been adopted, we are loved and sort of a wholeness develops

in that place so we don't have to walk around wounded for the

rest of our lives. That belief system produces

roots and it produces fruit on the second one on the top.

That's what happens when Christians start judging the

world for their behaviour. So we believe in a certain

amount of things, but we judge the world for their behaviour.

That that's actually, that's why people get crossed with the

church. They said don't put your stuff

on me. They don't behave like we behave

because they don't believe what we believe.

Our job is to deal with the tree on the left.

Titus is dealing with the tree on the left and so instead of

what we see in the bottom left hand side, instead of judging

people, we start to witness to them.

We show that by our lifestyle, we witness to people.

That's what takes place. And then in the last one, and

this is where the book of Titus is written, the book of Titus is

written here. This is what we believe about

Jesus. This is what he's done for us.

And because of that, we draw on this root system and we start to

produce a set of fruit and that witnesses to the world.

And then the world looks at us and say, why do you behave as

you do? And what Peter says, we behave

as we do because we believe that God has done this for us.

So the book of Titus is written here, The book of Romans in the

beginning is written here. The book of Ephesians in the

beginning is written here. Ephesians 123 is written here.

Ephesians 456 is written here. Romans 126 is written there.

Romans 7 to 16 is written here. Titus is written here.

Because what Titus has noticed is a couple of oranges appearing

on the apple tree and he's saying it seems like there's a

little root that is shut off down there somewhere and you're

drawing on something and and you're not representing Christ

in everything that you should be doing.

Christ has done a full job here. We start to live it here in

every way from our marriages to our sexuality.

We start witnessing to the world.

We get grab their attention. They look at us and when they

look at us, we say we do it because of this, not because

we're some kind of religious group of people that meet at

church on a Sunday. Amen.

Does that make sense to you? So that's the book of Titus.

It's a very beautiful book. And, and one of the things that

God says is if you want this thing to work properly, you've

got to actually get good leadership.

And so when God gives us list, it's not some list of a very

powerful group of people at the top.

It's actually a list of eldership that will take God's

people into the fullness of what God has for them.

I had a friend who said to me, I don't want to go to heaven.

I said, why not? He said, because they're 24

elders there now. Now that's a people have got a

very cynical or sometimes a hurtful perspective on

leadership in the life of the church.

But leadership in the life of the church are not meant to be

domineering over people's lives. Leadership in the life of the

church are meant to serve people.

And so the reason that I get a salary is so that I can spend

time during the week preparing the Word and praying so that I

can come to you and feed you, hopefully with gentleness and

grace. Yes, we've got to take on false

teachers. Yes, we've got to set direction.

Yes. But actually my task is to serve

you. And so the best way to describe

leadership in the church is we are your servants, but you are

not our bosses. And and so this is amazing power

struggle between the church and leadership, but it's not meant

to be like that. We're meant to serve each other.

And as we serve each other, we start to build a New Testament

committee where the world in Pretoria looks and thinks, wow,

there is actually a community on this earth that represents

something different. And we can buy into it and we

can and we can enjoy it and we'll grow there.

And we should be set free there. And one of the things it talks

about is marriage. I've been married to this woman

for 31 years. And, and the and the, and the

marriages of the pastors are important.

And the question asked Westfield got asked me is, does she still

take your breath away? And the art of good husbanding

is to love a woman who's aging as her art is to love a husband

who's aging and to love a church that is aging.

This time next year, this church is 30 years old.

I've been in the church for 46 years and the question that God

always asks me is, does she still take your breath away?

And I've got to say, yes, she still takes my breath away.

I love her. I was sitting at a funeral in

Durban. I sent her a message.

I said, I want to tell you, my babe, you've got pretty as

you've got older. I love your softness.

I love your gentleness. I love the fact that you never

slander or gossip about anybody. I love these things about you.

I love the way you look at me. I love the way that you hold my

hand in public. I love the way that you bless me

every time I get up to preach. And then the question is, does

the church still take your breath away?

Now, the problem in a church this size is many of you would

have been hurt by the church and even hurt by dominant leaders

and maybe even hurt by me. But the reality is that the

church is still God's number one vehicle on the earth to bring in

his Kingdom. The Kingdom is much bigger than

the church, but the church is the primary vehicle of the

Kingdom. And can God bring his Kingdom in

through US? Does the church still take your

breath away? I've got to say, when I stand at

the front of the church and I see young people and old people

and black people and white people and rich people and poor

people and, and married people and single people and educated

people, and walking into the same room, yes, it does take my

breath away. It completely and utterly takes

my breath away. You take my breath away.

And I know some of your stories and you are deeply broken, and

some of you are going through really difficult times, and you

could have chosen to be anywhere today, but you chose to come and

represent this apple tree that somehow in the midst of your

crisis, you still chose to come and worship.

And Adele is standing on the stage.

And Adele has been leading worship in the church from the

very, very beginning. For nearly 30 years, she's LED

worship in this church. And she's still standing in

leading worship. And standing next to her is my

son who arrived here 12 years ago.

And somehow he's also leading worship.

And I sit and think 30, a veteran, six month veteran, and

Kevin Cochlin, who's this grey haired man who's been here since

the very beginning, he still loves Jesus, he still loves his

wife, he still loves the church. And we say, hey, guys, it

doesn't matter what your experience is.

If we go back into the vortal system, if we go back into the

root system and we start to draw on the nutrients of the finished

work of Christ, we can actually start to produce a tree where

people look and think, wow, wow, it actually works.

I can tell almost everyone of your stories.

That guy's name is Carl. He came here.

He had not been in the church for 10 years.

We used to have a meeting in the 10th.

The building was straight down like that.

About 2/3 of the way down, maybe 3/4 of the way down, this man

walked in. Do you remember that Sunday,

Carl? You walked in.

You had not walked into the church for 10 years.

I remember standing up and preaching and I looked at you

and I thought, God, God, thank you.

How many years ago is that? 7201820186 years ago God knit

him into our family and, and, and now he's one of the apples

on our apple tree. And so this is the book of Titus

and God wants to introduce leadership to you today.

He does three things. He says this is how good leaders

operate. He says then it's going to

outwork itself in family. So there's a lot of no's.

No to overbearing leadership, no to slander ladies, no to giving

up old men, no to retirement, no to sin and wickedness, no to

that stuff, No to the law, No to circumcision, no, no, no to that

stuff. And we're going to produce

families that actually look different.

No to false teachers, No to greed, no to sin, no to porno,

no to drunkenness. I was going to say a whole lot

of nose over November. It's the whole lot of nose so

that the grace of God can come and touch our lives.

Amen. So let's have a look.

It breaks into three parts. Chapter 1 is about leadership,

so let's read it. Paul, the servant of God and the

apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of God's elect and the

knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness, Say

godliness. He wants us to produce apples.

A faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, say

eternal life. I don't know the way Paul

operates. The Bible is, is the way you and

I operate in the world. We have a childhood and we have

an adulthood and we spend the childhood asking what you're

going to do and you spend the adulthood doing what you said

you wouldn't do. You stand up in class and they

say what you're going to do. I'm going to be a fireman.

What are you going to do? I'm going to be a policeman.

What are you going to do? I'm going to be AI want to be

Elon Musk. God bless you with the children

of the of the thousand hills. I want to be and, and, and we,

and we, we kind of say what we want to be.

And then it's very difficult, Hey, when you leave school

because you still don't know what you want to be.

And then you go and study medicine, then you end up as a,

it's just weird. Hey, this transition somehow

between childhood and adulthood are the two ages that we

wouldn't live in. And they don't often compare.

I wanted to be a fireman and I and I'm a preacher.

But Paul says there are also two ages.

There's this present age and there's an eternal age and he

says what Jesus has done is his he's made this eternal age break

into the present age so we can actually be children in Christ

and yet start to live as adults because the eternal world breaks

into our present world and this present world is evil.

It says in Crete, he's preaching in, in Crete.

The Cretans, we said it last week, they are liars.

They are licentious, they're sleeping around and they're

lazy. But we but we have this eternal

world where God is not a liar. He's trustworthy and he's

faithful and he's honest and he's pure and he's diligent and

he actually starts to break into our world.

And so instead of living with what the poets and the

philosophers say about Pretoria, we start to live with the

eternal world breaking into our present world and we start to

represent God on earth. Now, are you with me, guys?

That's the book. That's how you got to wrestle

through Titus. And and Titus is actually

written to every one of us because what happens is we

develop habits in every relationship.

We develop habits in our marriage, we develop habits.

And then God comes and he speaks Titus and he says, no, Rory, you

can't say that to Mel. No, it's not acceptable.

She is my daughter. And you cannot get frustrated.

We're opening two things the other day with plastic handles

and with plastic coverings, and Mel had a knife in one hand and

a glass of water in the other hand.

I said, just put that blooming water down.

Oh, yeah, It doesn't. It doesn't happen in your house.

Yeah. Yeah.

Never happens in your house. Yes, I know.

It's just me. It's only me blooming.

I don't know where blaming comes from, but it's the it's it's the

it's the age appropriate swear. It's still it's comes from the

same place as other words come from.

And I went and sat on the veranda, I think, give me tea,

you know, And then she came and I said, you know what, babe, I'm

so sorry. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry that

just for those seconds, I just I, I say no to that behavior, my

babe, I'm so sorry. I say no to you don't have to

live under that. And in her graciousness, he

said, I know you're under pressure, my babe, I said, but

under pressure doesn't change the fact that that should not

come into my home with me friends.

So we've got this very big church and we're saying, but

it's a lounge actually. We belong together and we're not

going to let people get away with stuff that's going to

affect the family. We've got this unbelievable

church and, and, and we've got a gardener who works here full

time. And then you can see the gardens

are absolutely beautiful because if you look in the book of

Genesis, it starts in a garden. And we're trying to create this

garden in, in Pretoria, E that when people come here, they feel

alive and they can see the birds and the bees and they can see

creation. And we put, we put colorful

umbrellas up because so many people's lives are boring.

And when you come into the church, you should see the

creativity of garden. You should be inspired that

actually when God designed the sign, he made a rainbow and so

that we could express color and that color is meant to

infiltrate into every single one of our relationships.

Now, the problem with this street is that it's one of the

major thoroughfares of Pretoria East.

So it's absolutely covered in litter, absolutely covered.

Every week there is just tons of litter that gets thrown just in

the street here. And I get so grieved by that.

And I think, how do people take their litter and throw it into

my street when I'm trying to build something that represents

presents God and take it from you into the city.

We can't even affect the road 100 meters from us.

And you realize that litter gets so not every one of us has got

litter in our hearts. Every one of us has got history.

Every one of us has got disappointment.

Every one of us has got disqualification.

Every one of us has got a story with the church leader.

But let God take your litter so that you don't Chuck it into the

heart of the person next to you, and we can actually start to

gather something that looks like the scriptures instead of being

littered with other people's rubbish.

So we go into the belief system. We let God deal with our

brokenness, we let God deal with our abuse.

We let God deal with that thing which has disappointed us.

We let him heal it. You are adopted.

You have every spiritual blessing in Christ.

You are loved, you are chosen. If your dad rejected you, God

chose you. That becomes the belief system.

And so you're not producing fruit of rejection, you're

producing fruit of being chosen. Are you with me, friends?

Which God who does not lie? Which God who does not lie,

Elniki with God who does not lie.

As you are wrestling the disease inside of your blood and inside

of your hormones, a God who does not lie, who has given you many

promises, and some of you are sitting here, you must remember

the book of Acts takes about 40 years to write.

So some of your children have walked away from God.

Sitting in this room today. Your kids have walked away from

God, but God promised you that your kids will come back to him.

God does not lie. God does not lie.

That means we can trust Him and His faithfulness forever.

And ma'am, you too can trust God because he does not lie.

He does not lie. And I don't know the patience of

God. And if I was God, I would be a

little bit more. But God who does not lie.

You see, the Cretans were known for lie.

The God of Crete was Zeiss, Zeiss Zedeus.

He was and he was known for deceitfulness.

And now the one that is penetrating into their ranks is

a God who doesn't use deceit to get his own way.

God who does not lie, you can trust him.

I had one of my very dear friends in my office this week

and he said it feels like God has left me.

God cannot leave you. It is impossible.

Hebrews 13 tells us God will never leave you and he will

never forsake you. And if that's all you have to

hear today, God will never leave you and he will never forsake

you. And I've been serving him for 46

years and I've always seen the faithfulness of God.

We're not getting very far away. Read this book and let God speak

to you families, let God speak to you society, let God speak to

us promised before the beginning of time that his appointed

season. He brought His word to light

through the preaching and trusted to me by the command of

God our Savior. Say Savior three times.

You'll see in the book of Titus you'll see this word Saviour.

Say Saviour. When you see the word Saviour,

you must ask two questions. What has He saved me from and

what has He saved me for? He always saves me from

something and He always saves me for something.

I went to a funeral this week of a young beautiful man.

You probably saw his story in the news.

It was all over the news. His name was Dingo Dinkleman.

The Steve Irwin of South Africa. The snake handler, Crocodile

Hunter. Steve Irwin.

I say the Dingo Dinkleman. Dingo Dinkleman I met as a

preacher when he was on a youth campus, 16 years old.

I met him and he became my friend.

He's a rebel. He fought with everybody.

He loved life. He had this quest for freedom.

He was an unbeliever. Everything he touched turned to

gold. He became an insurance salesman.

He was top 3IN old Mitchell as a 20 something year old.

He's one of the top three insurance.

And every time I used to meet, he used to fight with the church

and fight with me and he was this most unbelievable man.

But he said, you know, Rory, I don't want to sell insurance.

I want to handle snakes. I want to.

I was not designed got to save me from my Wretch.

I got to say but he has saved me for something.

He saved me. He saved me to handle snakes.

And six weeks ago he wrote a letter to his wife.

He said on my memorial service, I do not want people to mourn.

I want them to rejoice whether I die by accident or by whether I

die from a wild animal. And he was bitten by green mamba

a month ago and he died. He wrote his own memorial

service, but he knew why he was designed.

His job was to handle snakes and to take away the stigma of wild

animals and people. He lived his life to the full.

Why are you saved? You have not been saved as I say

to collect shells and Neisner and I tell you this, what I get

saved into is more important than what I get saved out of

because for God to forgive my sin is not difficult for Him.

He does it like his boof. It doesn't matter how dark, how

dirty or how debauched you are. God can save you from your sin

and from the curse of death and from the power of the law.

He saves me from it. But to know what he saved me for

is more because I have to work with him.

He saved me for a purpose. God, I got born in the Free

State and I went grew up in the towel and I knew a little bit of

Afrikaans because God actually knew that he saved me for

Pretoria. I'm, I'm doing what God called

me to do. And some of you need a cheeky

Englishman just to remind you of a few things that you don't have

to fulfill the law in order to please God.

Jesus fulfilled the law. But actually you do have to

treat your wife. It affects the way that you do

life. Amen.

So whenever you see the word Saviour, say, what am I saved

from and what am I saved for? Some of you need to open your

homes. Some of you need to open your

heart. Some of you need to open your

wallets because you weren't saved to collect cars.

Amen to Titus my true Son, and our common faith.

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and Jesus Christ our

Lord. Say grace.

And the very last verse in chapter 3 says grace be with

you, grace to you, and grace with you.

So you've got this amazing brackets of grace and 7 * 7

times. Say 7 times between these two

graces it says, and you must produce good works and you must

produce good, and you must be good, and you must good and good

and good. And you think, oh, Rory's

preaching the law, Good, good, good, good, good, good, good,

good, good. No, no grace, Grace 7 times

good. When we understand grace

properly, it affects our lives. The reason I left you in Crete

was that you might straighten out what was left unfinished and

appoint elders in every town as I directed You and elder must be

blameless. The husband of but one wife, a

man whose children believe and are not.

There's a first no, not open to the charge of being wild and

disobedient. Since an overseer is entrusted

with God's work, he must be blameless, not overbearing, not

quick tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not

pursuing dishonest gain. Rather, he must be hospitable,

one who loves what is good, first good, who is self

controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.

He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has

been taught, so that he can be encouraged others by sound

doctrine and feud those who oppose it.

For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and

deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group, the

legalists. They must be silenced because

they're ruining whole households by teaching things they ought

not to teach, and that for the sake of dishonest gain.

Even one of their own prophets has said Cretans are always

liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.

This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply.

Who must do that? The church leader, so that they

will be sound in the faith. And pay no attention to Jewish

myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth.

All sorts of religious rubbish comes into the church and God

has given leaders to deal with that.

To the peer all things appear. They've tried to objectify

things and say food is dirty and decisions are dirty and it says

no, no, no. Dirtiness comes from the heart.

Food is clean. But to those who are corrupted

and do not believe nothing is pure.

In fact, both their minds and their conscience are corrupted.

They claim to know God, but by the actions they deny him,

they're detestable, disobedient, and unfit for doing anything

good. The elders can stand, please.

And the elders and wives, if you can stand.

God says if we're going to live this life properly, I need good

leadership to come into the life of the church.

Good leadership, number one, is not overbearing.

You should not be controlled by leadership.

I think the leadership in the church plays too much influence

in people's lives. That's not my job.

I must have an influence in your life, but not too much influence

must not be overbearing. I should not be forceful in my

character and nature. The job of the leaders to serve.

And if you've been in this church for any length of time,

you might not even know some of these people, the guys who don't

preach. But this is Robert and Suzanne.

They've been in this church for many years.

They were about to leave. They were going to go to tour a

few. They bought a house.

They were going to retire and do business and ministry down there

in December, 2 years ago. And in my heart, I nearly died

because I felt like God had given them to as a gift to this

church. This is Robert and Suzanne,

they've been in this church for 26 years.

Every year they've asked God this question when they go on

holiday, must we stay in this church?

And every year God has said yes, you must stay in this church.

Why? To love you, to look after you,

to teach you the truth, to bring into the wholeness, to teach you

to say nose to some things, yes to other things, and to love

you. They have a beautiful Home

group. They have an incredible picture

of serving God. They've been married for how

many years? 22 years?

He loves his wife, He honors her.

She loves him and honors him. A gift to Theresia.

This is not like this, She keeps saying.

This is Clinton Ellen. There's an American girl.

She came out as a missionary. She went into deep, dark Kwazulu

Natal. She stayed in a really dangerous

place. This guy who was in our church

found her, haunted her down, married her.

She left her family behind. She's an American missionary to

Africa. Why did God choose an American

girl to Africa To remind your friends in this church that we

are saved not just from something, but we're saved for

something. Every one of you has got a

purpose on your life When God designed you designed you with a

purpose. Some of you it's to be really

rich. Some of you is to control the

financial institutions of this country.

Some of you is to be in governance.

Some of you is to be lecturers. Some of you are to be

unbelievable entrepreneurs providing jobs for people and

opportunity. Some of you are to be teachers

and nurses. But this girl was designed,

there's A to go to Africa to show people that you can

actually leave your family and be radical for Jesus.

And sometimes it's painful. And every time I see her parents

leave here or every time she comes back from America, it

takes her about two or three weeks to reorientate herself.

But this is the kind of leaders that God sends to the church to

look after the church. And this guy and I worked

together. He bought me a coffee.

This is how we got became friends.

Are you with me, guys? I'm just trying to teach you how

tight this works. He's an Afrikaner, he's an

English folks, he's an American. And he bought me a cup of we

were in the same church but didn't really know each other.

And I was preaching at a conference in America and he

bought me a cup of coffee. And my spiritual father said to

me, he said, you must make that guy an elder in the church.

You and him will serve God together for the rest of your

lives. And so we did that.

He did an amazing job. And when I moved up to Pretoria,

I said, Clint, there are these most, there's this, there's this

word in Pretoria called, What's that like care?

That word doesn't exist anywhere else.

And if you ask a guy to explain it, you can't explain it.

It's so deep and big. And it's, it's, it's you arrive

at a guy's house and you care. And at about 11:00, he takes

this frozen meat out of his. And then, and then you see this

frozen meat in the middle of the night and you think, what is

this? He says, Kayur, I said, but how

long is it going to take? He says, not important.

Time is not important. It's Kayur.

He's the Kayur king. He's the guy that puts the glue

into the relationships of, of, of belonging in the life of the

church. And this girl is, is the girl

who lost her dad, whose dad was murdered on a farm and by God's

grace, through a good dad, my dad saw sister saw her and my

dad included her And God knit our hearts together and we'd be

married for 31 years and and and we're trying to work tied this

out together that I honor my wife and my wife honors me.

And and this is what this is what I this is this is what I

give to say my sweet, I promise you, I promise you I will never

watch pornography. I will never compare you to

another person because the Bible says that when they wrote the

Song of Solomon, he never compared his wife to anything he

said. He said your waste is like a

bundle of wheat and your breasts are like the fruit of a palm

tree and your teeth are like the sheep of Lebanon.

And it's just that it's just this unbelievable.

And I said please, I pray I'll never compare you to anything or

anybody or any horrible ugly image that I might see in a book

or on TV so that I can love you. Because if I love you like that,

then I will be able to stand up in front of the people on Sunday

and I'll be able to love them with integrity, without

comparing them to another bride, without comparing them to

another church, without being frustrated because the hip is

not exactly in place. But love them unconditionally.

And this is Pitt and Amarinda. This is the lady who started the

prayer meeting with some of her friends sitting here in

Watercliffe High School that has seen the revival that is taking

place. And while we're walking through

the journey with the headmaster and his wife sitting there, it

started with a seed of prey that came through a group of mothers.

And this guy's one of the Doyens of the society, the Linda Keys,

one of the, and, and, and somehow when we arrived here,

they just sort of embraced us and said, Hey, we'll make you

feel safe here. And when we have an elders

meeting, we like to eat together and pray together.

And every time we say we're having an elders meeting, they

say, can we have it at our house?

And then we go to their house and they just serve us.

They just love us. They just care for us.

They just put food on for us. And when you eat an Afrikaner

home, it's not the same as an English home.

It's different when you think you've finished.

That's just auster ovaries. That's just hors d'oeuvres oster

uberries. And you think, well, now it's

done and they think, no, no, no, but now, now we're going to

bring out the fat and cough and and you know, the Bible says it

says elders must be hospitable and that word hospitable is

where we get the word hospital from.

But it's not actually just the hospital.

It's like you come into my house and I will care for you.

So that's what they like. They just cared for this church

for 25 years. They just cared for the church.

You see, friends, this is not charismatic shouting.

This is just a group of people that God has called to love the

church so that the church can fulfill what God has called us

to do Amen. This is Matt and his wife Jess

is at the back, I think, with their three children, Pierce,

Alexander, Campbell, Juliet, and Heath.

How do I know that? Because I pray for them every

day. him and I had nothing in common except he went to the

same school. But then we found Jesus together

in the same church. He's a highly intelligent,

highly qualified engineer. He gets headhunted every second

here because he's so clever. And yet he's chosen many times,

he's been offered jobs all over the world.

But him and his wife who is a top financial advisor in this

country, a highly qualified girl.

Him and his wife feel God has called him to love this group of

people. And so many times he's turned

down jobs to move because he felt God told him to be an elder

in this church and to love this church.

Love and appreciate. You taken many people into his

home. Many, many people.

Many have got discipled and saved in their home.

Their Home group is full of young aspiring doctors.

They've produced more doctors in their Home group then Tookie's

University. You see, friends, this is not

people in the stage. This is not a hierarchical

process. We're going through the book of

Titus to say, can I trust these people to make sure that my

family will be safe and we will present something that looks

like Jesus? This is Damian and his wife,

Cherise. He's a teacher at Hatfield.

He's been the director of our music for many, many, many

years. He's actually an unbelievable

musician. He was the guitarist for

Rihanna, Nell. That was his claim to fame.

But actually, yeah. Yeah.

She came from this church. The daughter of this church sent

me an SMS this morning, said, hey, Rory, listen to this song.

Rihanna said. Thanks, Rihanna.

He said it go well. If you preached it, I said I am

preaching. He said bless you.

He runs our staff, he runs our teams and everything that

happens in the life of the church is run by him.

But he's a humble, gracious, kind guy.

He has no temper. Well, I haven't seen it.

They're very safe pair of hands. His sons are Luke and Andy. 2

beautiful guys this little guy, this naughty little like

beautiful guy. It remind me of Dingo Dinkleman

the snake handler. I remember one day I was praying

and I felt God say I had a motorbike.

My dad bought a motorbike for my nephew and then all our kids

learned how to ride on this little motorbike and I thought I

wonder where that motorbike is and I found it on one of my

neighbor's farms in the back thing.

I found this motorbike and I felt like God said I must bless

him with the motorbike. So I went and picked it up in

the towel and I bought it back and I dropped it off and I said,

hey Andy, I'll come tomorrow to teach you how to ride the

motorbike. I don't have time right now to

teach you. When I came the next day, he had

just Googled how to ride a motorbike and he'd already gone

through 3 tanks of petrol. They live on the property.

They, they, they're a gift to us and and I trust we're a gift to

you. And Lukey.

I'm delighted by the way you're growing up young man.

Your man is like exceptional. And when I look at the

scripture, wild and disobedient, you are wild, but that's not the

picture. You're meant to be free.

You're meant to love God. You're meant to grow up in the

church, but you're meant to have this unbelievable dislike.

You've got the zest for life. I always see you hitting a golf

ball or kicking a stone or chasing a rabbit or something.

It's it's the way you're meant to be.

And so Reese, I think you're an unbelievable teacher.

Everybody wants you because when people are under your care,

they're safe and and you're this amazing teacher.

You've got amazing patience with children.

And for 20 years you were sort of in the background that kids

ministry and and our God has called you.

You're an amazing gift to this church.

Yeah. And this is kind of my preaching

partner, but this girl is from Belgium.

Her dad is the guy who invented that bypass in the heart

angiogram. Her dad developed it.

He's in Belgium, but when their little daughter was sick last

year, I saw the church rally. When Gemma was in hospital, I

saw them rally around her and I saw her dad, who doesn't know

Jesus, fly from Belgium and come and be with them to love his

daughter because family is important.

And that's from the orange tree. What about the apple tree?

And you've heard me say this many times, he's an introvert.

I'm an extrovert, he's an intellect.

I'm dumb but but but we've formed this amazing partnership

of preaching. We have never in all the years

of being ever had a preaching meeting.

But he is the greatest preaching partner I've ever had.

And and I think he'll preach next week and and I won't speak

to him about Titus and God will speak to him about Titus and,

and together as as as he preaches and I preach and other

guys preach, the church starts to find like a wholeness and a

healing and a are you with me? You can be seated, please.

And I know we've gone over time, but Titus is written and it

says, hey guys, what I want you to do is I actually want you to

draw on the roots that you have and start to produce a kind of a

New Testament Christianity. And one of the ways we're going

to do that, we're going to appoint some elders that are

going to look after you and serve you.

They are not to be overbearing. They are not to be quick

tempered and I hope I never ever lose my temper with you.

Ever. The picture of a cross pastor

and a pulpit shouting and telling people they are not to

be greedy for money. There's far too much emphasis on

church and money. Far too much.

The church is not a financial institution.

The church is a spiritual institution.

You shouldn't be ripped off for money.

Anybody is welcome to have a look at my salary at any time.

My salary is set from outside. I've been here for 12 years.

I've never had a salary increase because when I came here I

managed to pay for my house. I have a really nice car and I

walked out of church the other day and somebody had stuck a

really rude sticker on my car. I felt like a sword went through

my chest. My car was bought for me by my

friends. When you entered this building

project, I gave my car away. When this building project was

over, my friends gave me a car. I trust I'll never RIP the

church or financially. And when I leave here, there

will never, ever be anybody. You can say he took advantage of

the people and not to be greedy for money.

That guy's the CEO of a really big business.

Massive, massive, massive business.

He just lives within his means. I watch this guy's got his own

business. Besides being in the Chase, he's

got a coffee business. All I do see him is just going

and delivering coffee left, right and center.

I watch this guy meet with businessman after businessman

after businessman after businessman.

I don't know how much this guy gave to the building project,

but one day we were praying and I felt God say, bulls our boy,

you've hit the bulls. Our boy, you've led the way in

generosity. This is the kind of leadership

that God wants for the church. Not charismatic, powerful

people, just people that will serve the Church and teach you

to say no when you have to say no.

Teach you say yes when you have to say yes.

God bless you.