Faithful and Fruitful — Matt Chandler

So, if you have your Bibles, let's go. First Corinthians, chapter 3. Um, I want to give you a bit of a background and then explain why I want to talk about this topic in particular, even though I think that it's starting to be addressed more and more and more. Um, uh, when my family was moved uh by the United States Navy from uh California, Alama California, the Bay Area, uh to Galveston, Texas. I, I don't know if you know both of those places, but I lost in that move. Um, we, we moved to Galveston, Texas, and and and I started to uh play football. I was not a good football player. Uh, I don't have that story that I had division one scholarships and then blew my knee. All right, I, I have a lot of hustle; that that's all I've got, right? Not overly coordinated, not overly talented in any way, but I try real hard and um, joined the football team and and really my story of conversion coming from a home with an abusive father and a hyper-religious mother. I had in my heart a lot of doubt and suspicion about the Christian faith in particular because my mother stayed with my father and kept us in an environment uh that was abusive and awful. Um, and so I, I had a great deal of skepticism towards Christianity. Uh, we moved to Texas. I joined the football team, uh, and and it wasn't long until a guy that played ball with me, a guy by the name of Jeff Faircloth—if you've listened to me, I've told the story a thousand times—um, really just approached me and said, "I need to tell you about Jesus. When do you want to do that?" And and so I loved Jeff's courage because he, he was going to let me decide where he shared the gospel with me, but he wasn't going to let me decide whether or not I heard the gospel. Uh, and so I'm going to tell you, "When do you want to do that? Right now in the locker room? Do you want to meet up later? When would you like me to tell you the gospel?" It's happening, so when do you want to do that? And so I, I literally have adopted that ever since he did it and use it all the time. And if you're a pastor, nothing—I mean, that's the easiest transition imaginable. What do you do? Well, I'm a civic engineer. What do you do? I'm a a pastor. So, you know, we have to do this. All right, you want to do it now? You want to do it later? I mean, what kind of Pastor would I be if I didn't share this with you? So, do you guys want to come over for dinner? Would you like to go out and grab a cup of coffee? It's happening. When would you like to do it? And and so uh, that is how I came to know Jesus Christ through the testimony of Jeff and him dragging me—um, not not dragging me, but him inviting me and bringing me uh to church week in and week out for uh over a year. Uh, I questioned and made fun of and mocked and and then eventually became a believer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, that, that, that's how I came in. I came in through the aggression of an evangelist uh who was going to tell me the gospel, whether I liked it or not. Okay. Um, so I'm giving you background so you understand my angst on this issue. Um, and and then uh, fast forward years later, uh, I am in college now, and I'm invited um to a conference. Hadn't had—I got a ton of experience in conference life now. No, no experience at the time. In fact, um, the the biggest kind of conference thing I'd ever been to was more like a youth camp or discipleship weekend uh uh post-conversion. And uh, so I, I head to this conference. It was in Austin, and and that was the first time I had ever heard um John Piper preach, and his sermon was uh, "Did Christ die for God or for us?" And and I—if you know, I've got a bit of a personality—and so I was like, "Us!" And and John didn't say no, but then he went on for an hour and said no, and and you know, kind of yes, but mainly no. And and that was my introduction into what we just simply call Big God Theology. And up until that moment, I, I had none of that in me. I mean, "For God so loved the world," I mean, that's kind of what I—I mean, I was just kind of your uh everyday Evangelical. And what I mean by that is I don't think everyday evangelicals are quite biblically informed. Uh, I, I think they are informed by what seems right to them, and and they'll proof-text some of that to make their point. Uh, that's very much where I found myself. And so, but what he said melted my mind. Um, and and so I went and I got one of his books, and then I, I learned he's just quoting from other dudes. And and so then I went and tried to get their books, and I was like, "Oh, they're just quoting from other dudes." And then I went and got their books, and they're just quoting from other dudes. And I just worked my way back to Jesus. And um, then in in the middle of all that, developed a real robust understanding of how salvation works and who God is and what I've called since then God's godness. And and really the thing I love to talk about more than anything else in the world is just God's godness, his immensity, his power, his sovereignty, his majesty. Those are those are things that I—like, you give me that topic and I'll just explode. And I'm going to go longer than the allotted time. Uh, that that's kind of uh the thing for for me more than anything else that really fuels and encourages and and sends me soaring. And and so after that happened, I, I was already teaching, but what I was teaching began to change. Um, and and man, I something happened there in '97 where I just got lit on fire. And so I'm—that's when my voice started going up. I'm not just kind of—I'm screaming at people now. I'm calling them dummies. I mean, I don't know what happened to me, but something really wrecked shop in my heart in in '97. And then what I learned as I traveled around and did a ton of college ministry back in those days and even as I rooted myself in uh a church and was kind of uh based out of a church but traveling all over the place was that I began to wonder whether or not itinerate ministry was going to work for me long term because I feel like I would preach—I felt like I was preaching my guts out—and then I would have these conversations with pastors and leaders, and there was this disjoint between—uh—what I believe the word of God said and and how they actually saw that playing itself out in life. And so I, I wanted to plant a church. Then I was like, "Well, you know what you do when you're in your 20s," like, "I'll do it right." And um, and so my plan was to plant a church. And in the middle of all that, God um saved me from some things, and I became the pastor of First Baptist Church of Highland Village, Texas, and which is a suburb of Dallas. And and again, I don't want to go too much into this because I'd rather get into 1 Corinthians 3, but but the thought of my life playing out in the Bible Belt, specifically Dallas, Texas—Bible Belt—now keep in mind I, I was born outside of Seattle, Washington. I lived in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, for just a couple of years and then was in the Bay Area. Now, if you've been to any of those three places, they're all kind of spectacular in how they look. And and if you've been to Dallas, you know that Dallas is one of those places that make those places look all the more spectacular. And and so culturally, a place where everyone's a Christian, um, and and then a a place that's just—there's not a lot—their city that shouldn't even exist. I mean, what's there? There's no port, there's no mountains, there's nothing that would really cause it to exist outside of human will. And and so there, there we go. I'm in Dallas, Texas, the pastor of this church. I'm preaching through books of the Bible, and we numerically exploded and for the last 10 years have grown by a thousand people a year for a decade. I, I say that not to brag because I don't understand it in any way. In fact, uh, there are multiple times—again, if you know—and and I followed our ministry—that I'll preach just straight up space-makers. All right, I'm like, "Today, limited atonement, let's do work," and and just know, "Let's try to thin the herd." All right, so we have—uh—made—we put a high bar on membership, uh high bar on pursuit of holiness. We actively do church discipline. I mean, here's a picture: this guy is no longer with us. If you see him, treat him as an unbeliever, which means you love him, encourage him, but your conversations with him need to be about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and being reconciled to whom he has rebelled against, not just us as a covenant community, but against the God he has said he has surrendered his life to. So, everything about how the village is wired doesn't lend itself to, "Let's grow real quick," and yet the Lord has seen to give us such a burden. Now, on the good front, that allows me to play in spaces that a lot of people can't play. Um, the the reason I get asked to speak at most uh of the events that are outside of the predominantly Reformed stream are not because I preach books of the Bible; it's because we've grown. It's because we've grown. Because if I would have gone into the village and done everything that I thought the word of God commanded me to do and killed the joint, you think Catalyst is going to call me, "Hey, man, come teach us how you killed that joint faithfully? How you faithfully killed your church?" So, let me get this straight: you guys went from 160 to 30? Can you come to a breakout on that? Right? Like, like none of that would have happened. So, it was really the fruitfulness aspect that a ton of people have come to know Christ, and that numerically we've swelled that has allowed me to play in some spaces that that I probably theologically—uh—most of us don't find ourselves invited into. All right, the the young Calvinist guy doesn't tend to get to speak at a lot of Seeker-oriented conferences, does he? And and yet the Lord saw fit to to do some of those things and open up some of those doors for me. So, when when you get into the the topic of faithful and fruitful, um, I, I tend to start to churn in me over things I see really uh in in what I'll just call both camps. Now, I think both camps are kind of caricatures; that they're not fairly accurate. I mean, if this is a—if if you want to go "Faithful" over here—someone who's just trying to grow, doesn't preach the gospel, doesn't um, you know, doesn't use the Bible; it's all just kind of laser smoke and uh, you know, elephants—you know, in in in the sermon illustrates like this elephant, and like a legit elephant walks out—if you're going to take the caricature all the way over here. Okay. And and then over here, "Faithful" is—you, you don't ever do anything but TULIP week in and week out. You know, you're just like, "Back to tea," and and you, you know, you—that those are the caricatures. All right, those are the caricatures. Very few people are actually on the end of this line. Most of us find ourselves in here, don't we? And and so what I want to do is I want to let the word of God bear its weight on how we think about faithful versus fruitful. I don't think the categories work because I don't think the Bible will let the categories work. So, let's go 1 Corinthians chapter 3. We're going to pick it up in verse one. "But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it, and even now you are not ready for it, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh, and are you behaving only in a human way?" So, so really he starts out here, and what he's saying shouldn't surprise us at all. All right, when you were converted, you, you drank milk because that's what babies drink when when they're babies. Right? When you're an infant, you eat like an infant. When you're an infant, you act like an infant. But you can hear in that next sentence, "And yet you're still on the bottle." All right. So, so just to be fair, if you see children in the kitty pool—you know, that smaller pool that's about 10 degrees warmer—that that that nobody freaks out at small children frolicking in the kitty pool. We are a bit nervous if there's a 50-year-old man in there by himself having a good time. I mean, don't we make a call if we see—and Paul's point is, "Sure, I get that when I was there you were just on milk, but you're still there," and that's a problem. In fact, Paul will repeatedly use this illustration, this expectation that we as the people of God should mature, that we are not static but rather growing in our relationship and understanding of the things of God. And so that there will be a time for all of us that we—on milk—those who are on milk are not abnormal; they are new. But we don't stay on milk; we actually move towards meat. Now, don't we see this in every other way? Like, like you see this physically all around you. I have three children—uh, 10, uh, seven, and soon to be four. One of my best friends, they just had uh a new uh daughter just a few weeks ago. Now, and his newborn daughter, Lucy, does not act like my 10-year-old daughter, Audrey. They don't act alike; they shouldn't be expected to act alike. They are different, and if they acted alike, then either he has a superchild on his hands or something's gone developmentally wrong with my 10-year-old. And what the Apostle Paul is saying here to the church at Corinth is, "You have a developmental issue. That by now you should have grown. You should have been sanctified. You should be seeing things differently than the way you're currently seeing them." And and the accusation for their developmental retardation is that there is jealousy and strife uh among them, and and that that really is the source. How do I know you're immature? Uh, how do I know that you're not ready for meat? How do I know? Well, because there's strife and jealousy among you. Now, what—I'm a pastor—what could be the root of this jealousy and strife? It's not going to be—unless you know this text—it's not going to be what you would think. It's one of the dumbest arguments in the Bible. Look at verse four: "For when one says, 'I follow Paul,' and another, 'I follow Apollos,' are you not being merely human?" I love that, "Merely human." That's so human of you, right? So, he—here's jealousy and strife in Corinth, and why he says they're immature. You know why? You want—you want—you know why you are immature? Because one of you is like, "Well, Paul said—" and another one's going, "Well, that's not what Paul says," and and they're, they're really elevating these men beyond where they should be elevated. Now, let me, let me be real clear here: it's been my experience that when you get into a conversation about faithfulness and fruitfulness, the personality of the lead guy is almost always in the mix. And so what I love is that the first part of this, the first part of this text is going to address the personality of the pastor. It's going to address how we should see men and women of God. But I, I love that he, he says, "Here's this argument: I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos." They're different guys, right? If you know your Bible well, you, you've got Paul, who himself—just like, "Look, I'm not wise and persuasive." You find out that that really when he writes he's brilliant, but when he speaks you're kind of disappointed. You know, you like read all his books, you're like, "God, I love that guy," and then you went to the conference and heard him, you're like, "Uh, all right," you know, "I like his books better." Um, and and then Apollos is is actually the opposite of that. We don't, we don't really have any of his writings, but it's, it's apparent even when he doesn't fully get the gospel that he's bringing it. They like, "Man, this guy's so good. Let's pull him aside and explain to him." Uh, kind of close. Years ago, uh, J.R. Vassar, who's the pastor um of Apostles Church in New York City, a dear friend of mine, had me come in and preach at his—um, he was at MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church; he was a youth pastor there—and had me come in and speak one of the first times I actually spoke um external to the church I was just serving in, and I preached out of Hebrews 12, and uh, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses," right? And and so I preach that, you know, people are looking at our lives; we need to make sure we're—and and so I mean, I, I preached, and then at lunch he just very graciously—I don't want to make him sound like the jerk he was—but very graciously said, "Hey, man, great job. It's evident that you're comfortable in your own skin; evident you got a passion for the things of God. Have you ever read Hebrews chapter 11? Because the way you just taught Hebrews chapter 12 leads me to believe that you might not have read Hebrews chapter 11." And and there was just some correction. They pulled Apollos aside and just said, "Close, but—" and and they corrected them. So, you've got two different types of guys: you got Paul and you've got Apollos, and they're not the same guy. And and some are saying, "Really like Paul," some are saying, "I really like Apollos," and and Paul saying, "How human is this? How merely human is this?" So, how are we to see men and women of God? And why is it foolish to exalt men and women beyond where they should be? Uh, well, he's going to unpack this for us in verse five: "What then is Apollos, and what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything"—I would highlight, underline, star that word, write a line out in your margin, put "Wow"— "but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building." So, there are three things we see here about the man of God; three things we see here about the man or woman of God. And and here's what they are: all ministers are but servants who carry out God-given assignments. Right? Now, did you hear that? That we're all just servants of God, but we're all carrying out our God-given assignments. Here, here's what I know: you are not the next anyone. You are you. In fact, um, as I've worked with and walked with 20-something young men as they seek to plant churches, you can see who influences guys and who they try to be. Uh, I've said so—Mark Driscoll um was uh the president of Acts 29 for years, actually one of the founders of Acts 29—and and I would see young guys try to be Driscoll—train wreck. You know, some poor kid, First Baptist Church, Haskell, Texas, starting his sermon, "16 reasons I think you're an idiot," and then he's getting fired 'cause he's trying to be somebody he's not. Look, let's look: right at you—you're not John Piper, right? You're not Tim Keller, you're not Kevin DeYoung, you're not David Platt, you're not—you're you. And you should be grateful to God that you're you, because if he needed another one of those guys, he'd have made another one of those guys. But accordingly, God, in his sovereignty, decided what he actually needed where you are as you. And so we each—given gifts by God, placed by God. You believe that, don't you? I mean, is that what Psalm 139 said? I, I know that verse has been hijacked by women's ministries, but aren't you uh fearfully and wonderfully made? Did God not wire you in your mother's womb? When God says in Acts 17 that the times and places that you would dwell, that you would uh inhabit were set before you were born, you believe that, right? That how God wired you and where God placed you is a part of his divine plan to redeem and rescue among the the lost of this world his children. Then be you—we're all but servants, and there aren't greater servants and lesser servants. In fact, I love and have loved for years Luke 17:7-10: "Will any of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come at once and recline at my table'? Will he not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterwards you will eat and drink'? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what is our duty.'" I love this, this verse. You give me a compliment, Luke 17 is going to pop into my head. I have only done what was asked of me. We are all, all servants of God, and we've been given different tasks. What's imperative is that you grow comfortable and confident in the task that God has given you, the task that God has given you. We also see in this text that all ministers are but tools in the hands of God, tools in the hands of God. Um, I, I, I learned years ago that um, there are times when when I'm preaching and teaching that I think I'm nailing it. I mean, just in the middle, I'm like, "Oh, man, everybody's getting saved in this joint today." I mean, I, I just feel—I mean, I just feel like I'm in rhythm, and then I'm like, "Oh, amen," crickets—just not everyone awkwardly staring at me. All right, then I just kind of have to limp off and just—TR—okay, you know, that's where sovereignty kicks back in. All you got it. I'm just going to trust you with conversion, salvation, and then—and then there are other times that I, I've just felt like I've lost my place. I'm not quite sure what I'm saying. I just feel like I just gaffed the whole thing and and seen God really do a tremendous work. If salvation belongs to God and if sanctification is fueled by the Holy Spirit of God working in the hearts of people, then I am faithful to the text and God does the rest. And we are all but tools. My father-in-law shames me on a pretty consistent basis. Um, what I mean by that is he's super, super handy, and I'm not. And so, like, no joke, he made our dining room table—like, just made it—and and I, I've tried to help him before; it's just embarrassing. You know, he'll ask me to grab a tool that I think he's making up to to shame me, but it's actually a tool. And uh, I mean, he can just build great things. And so he built this deck on the back of our house; he built our dining room table. And and no one comes over and sees those things and hears that he um built those things and says, "Hey, do you have the hammer that he put this together with? Really like to see that hammer." They just marvel at the fact that he has such abilities. And and you and me, friends, we're we're just tools in the hands of God. And what God builds and what God accomplishes in this text is God's business. We're just tools in his hands. Again, if you would grow in confidence and if you would grow in comfort with this truth, I think a lot of restlessness in your soul might die. And then I, I love the last thing here; I think it'll rub some of us, but—

I, but I think that's a good thing. We all serve the same purpose, and we're fellow workers with God. That, that you and I and all those around us who are faithful Ministers of the Gospel are really on the same team. Now that, that gets a lot of amens; that gets a lot of head nods. I don't see it playing out that way very often, uh, among, um, particularly the, those that crowd that would be deemed or redeem itself more faithful. But we'll talk more about that here in a second.

When I was going through what I'll just call reformed puberty, um, uh, what I would do is, it was very easy; it, it worked though, didn't it? You understood exactly what I was talking about, right? When my reformed voice was cracking, and uh, it was just, it was every, you know, if you weren't reformed, I doubted your, your, your salvation, and you, uh, you know, anyone who wasn't, you know, walking through TULIP on a regular basis with their Church obviously didn't know the gospel. And you know, when I kind of went through that, uh, really I had a, a very loving man, um, pull me aside and very generously tell me that I didn't know what I was talking about. And then he, he taught me to do this; he, he said if I was in a place where I, um, I felt that angst in my soul rise up, I needed to figure out whether or not my disagreement with what I was seeing, whether it was theological or whether it was philosophical, or, or whether it was personal preference.

And I was surprised how often that my issues with the way a church was wired or a way a church was organized weren't necessarily theological but had much more to do with philosophical outworkings. Now, are those two tied together? Absolutely. All right, um, um, theology, um, is foundation; philosophy of ministry is kind of the, um, the framing, all right? And practice as kind of the furniture, if you think of ministry as a, as a house. And so I know they're somewhat connected, but often times I have a philosophical issue with people more than I have a theological, and I'm constantly have personal preference issues with dudes. And, and so he sat me down, and, and taught me, you need to figure out which is which and have a great deal of concern for your theological issues and start to breathe a bit more on your, um, philosophical and, and practical outworkings, and, and be more gracious and generous. And, and then what I've learned over the years, that, that I need to—this is going to sound crazy—I need to handle even my theological issues with other men in a way that is distinctively Christian. Like, here's crazy idea: act Christian. That, in that novel, can I disagree with the brother? Yes. How Christianly can I have major issues with this or that? Absolutely. And, and I think there are times that it's right and good to do that, but in that I should always act in a way that mirrors Christ. Well, that mirrors Christ well.

Now, what is this thing that we're all, um, this purpose that we're all working on and working towards? Well, we see the answer to that in Ephesians 4:11-12. And he just says, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the Shepherds and the teachers to equip the Saints for the work of Ministry for the building up of the body of Christ. So now we're turning our attention away from the man, uh, so let's turn our attention away from the man now, because here's what we know about the man: he's simply a servant who is a tool in the hand of God, and if he's a gospel Ministry, he's on our team. And now we're turning our attention away from the man and now onto what the man is building, and that is the church. And so now we get into verse 10, and this is going to help us moving forward in, in regards to the discussion of faithful and fruitful. Look at 10: according to the grace of God given to me like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds on it, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid in Jesus Christ.

I love this because now we're going to get a, a definition of faithful ministry that's going to carry us on into the fruitful conversation. So here's what we found out just in this verse: that if you have built something on anything other than the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, then you have built wrongly, and what you have built is not Ministry. It might be a good Gathering of people who are doing great work in regards to justice, but it can't be fruitful because it's not faithful. So we have built Ministries; we have built churches on the foundation of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ Alone. Our foundation is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Where that is not true, we cannot be fruitful Ministries, uh, because anything we grow is—I think Paul Tripp once used this illustration—is an apple stapled to a tree; it's going to rot; it's not plugged into what gives it life. All fruitful Ministry is built on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, regardless of numerics. Um, without the foundation of the, the gospel, you build in vain.

Now I, I love church planting; I mean, I love it; I, I there are a few things that, that amp me up like a guy that's going to go into a city where he believes there's not a strong gospel witness and he wants to plant a strong gospel witness. So when I think of guys like Eric Mason in Philadelphia, Darren Patrick in St. Louis, Leon Crump in Atlanta, and on and on and on, I could go—Vasser up in New York—guys who parachute into a city, some of them just with their family, some of them with a core team, and just start sharing the gospel with their neighbors and see people come to know Christ and, and plant a church, a Bible-believing, gospel-preaching, ferociously faithful church. That's something I'd love to just give my life over to, man, to spend my time empowering, equipping, training, and releasing those type of men to do this type of work, because according to this text, this is faithful and fruitful Ministry. Paul, Paul says that, that he, like a skilled Master—by the way, I would not describe your planting strategy that way, um, that's probably going to get you in anyone's assessment shut down—I'm a skilled Master; skilled Master at planting. But, but that's how Paul describes himself here, um, you, you have a faithful work in his skill Master planting, but it's also fruitful. But he also says here that it's not just the planting of the church, but really what the church does moving forward that matters. Look at verse 12 now: if anyone builds on that foundation of the Gospel with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw. So now he, he separates it out: you can have a gospel Foundation, but now you've got to build on that gospel foundation, and he gives, uh, different materials that we can build with: gold, silver, precious stones, and then wood, hay, and straw.

I think the best way to understand this is to kind of look at how Paul views wood, hay, and straw, and, and some of the ways he looks at doctrinal imprecision, um, in, in other, uh, letters that he wrote. It seems wood, hay, and straw here seem to symbolize erroneous or imperfect doctrines that won't stand, uh, the test of life, and that which in the end would lead to evil practices. Let me give you some examples: Galatians 4:9: but now that you have come to know God, or rather be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world whose slaves you want to become once more, right? So now you've got this; you, you, you have the foundation of the Gospel, right? If you remember the book of Galatians, you got the Judaizers that moved in there, and you've got Paul's claim: you, you got set free by the gospel; you believed and put your faith in the gospel; are you now going back to this? Who bewitched you? Really, you want to go back to that when you had this? It's this weak, erroneous, uh, really doctrinal misunderstanding of the Gospel. Again, in, uh, Colossians chapter 2:8: see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ. So you get this idea from the, the Apostle Paul's writings that when he says you can build with wood, hay, and stubble, these are things that are going to be burned up; they're not going to make it; they're not going to stand the test of time. And so now if you roll back up and you look at gold, silver, and precious stones, it seems like that would be the opposite of these perfect, these imperfect pieces that won't stand the test of time. So gold, silver, precious stone is building the church out of those things that will lead to Holiness, will lead to life, namely the gospel, the seriousness of the gospel, and perpetually laying before your people the need for the gospel. And this creates a unique climate; the gospel does—a climate where it's okay to not be okay.

So I've tried to tell the village for years: I love the cross because it's just set me free; I don't have to pretend that I'm anything; God's already outed me on the cross. Like when Jesus went to the Cross, he declared to everyone: Matt Chandler is a bum; I got to handle this for him. Christ goes to the Cross: Matt Chandler is a self-centered, self-serving, self, self-absorbed fool of a man; so I got to rescue him. How freeing is that, that God out—I mean, you want to just completely lay before your people, over and over and over, their desperate need for God has accomplished for them in Christ. So now that we've got the foundation laid, all right, it's got to be faithful and fruitful, or it's not laid at all, and, and now you're moving on into building upon that foundation. And now what we see here is you can have, um, fruitful faithful Ministry, but, but you can have one or the other. You can build with wood, hay, and straw, and that's, uh, fruitful Unfaithful, or you can build with silver, gold, and precious stones, and you can have, um, faithful and fruitful. And, and so you see that how you build upon, on that, uh, matters. And then look in verse 13 as we begin to wrap up our time: each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by Fire, and Fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

Now, um, to me, I, I often times want to be real careful about how quickly I judge, um, other Ministries, other pastors. I just want to be really quick to not, uh, blast, to not, um, load my gun and start sniping from thousands of miles away. I don't feel any need to police evangelicalism; I, I feel a desperate need to protect the people God has asked me to Shepherd and Steward my influence well. Um, the way I've tried to explain it to the A29 brothers is, um, I'm not afraid of a fight, but I'm not often looking for one. If I, I've, I got to show my teeth, I'm willing to do that, but it's not my default. And, and so in, in the end here, what we see happening is that the work of men will be exposed, but I need you to hear me say this: yours, because what happens in verses like this is we immediately want to go to lowest common denominator and find some character of a dude you don't know at all, but I only saw some five-minute clip on YouTube and have completely judged his work. And your default, our default, our Wicked heart default is to go: yeah, their Ministry is going to be judged; they're going to be burned up on fire, and we'll see what remains. What about yours, boss? Yours too. See, just like the people you Pastor are prone to feel like they're holy because they'll look for some buffoon that they're friends with to tell me, we're not just as apt to do it as pastors and to feel puffed up about our ministry by comparing ours to someone we feel is weaker than we are in regards to theological understanding. You don't think that's going to get burned up a little bit? You don't think there's a little bit of wood in that gold, little bit of straw in that silver, little bit of hay in that, that precious stone of yours? So again, when you get into faithful, fruitful argumentation, I think what you're dealing with is character chur.

So here's what I want to do: I want to critique the character chur. Most of us are going to find ourselves somewhere in the middle, and no one that I know who preaches on the weekend would consider themselves Unfaithful. Everyone considers themselves faithful, right? Noes matter who you could name for me that's a, a, a well-known Pastor who wouldn't feel like what he's doing is being faithful. So I want to address the character, knowing that, that the, um, line is long, all right? Here's how I believe the, the faithful, we'll, we'll start with, um, the faithful stream, um, uh, that again, I, I think this is funny; I don't think these categories work because everybody thinks they're faithful. So the faithful stream, you know, the, the let's just roll through TULIP over and over and over again from my 30-year Pastor, right? You know, now back to the youu, and, and so, um, let's critique that. I think there are three primary AR ways that the faithful stream, um, really assumes the gospel. Here's what they are: the first one is, is I have found in many kind of Rich theologically driven places a, a lack of gospel ambition. It's just a straight lack of gospel ambition. And what I mean by that is there seems to be a celebration of smallness as though smallness equals faithfulness; that a badge of honor on faithfulness is the fact that you're small. Now I can only hope, earnestly hope, that that's only there as a response to the incessant pounding on us that what's successful is, is numeric size. A lack of gospel—here, here's what God Saves: he's able to save; he saved you; he saved me; he saves. I, I want to believe he, I, I know theologically that he's not going to save everyone. I'm, I'm going to preach, teach, share the gospel and engage my neighbors and, and the, the parents of my kids, um, friends and with the gospel, believing that God's going to save them all. I know he's not, but I'm going to believe that way, and I've got that kind of ambition in me to believe that God can work. I can see him working in the scriptures in ways that I find my heart jealous for. Like I look at Ephesus and I see the silversmith having to throw a riot because they can't make money off a sinful gain, and then when I'm driving past Walnut Hill and I see all those strip joints, what I want is the Holy Spirit of God to fall in such a way that you can't make money on that anymore. So I'm praying that way, and I'm hungry, and I'm, I'm sometimes frustrated that I haven't seen it—not in a way that's paralyzing because I know he's Sovereign—but I want it, and I want to preach till I see it; I want to plead with God, and I want to encourage our people to plead with God for it and to believe him for it. It's gospel ambition. I think I'm talented enough—you know what? I, I can motivate people—you know how far that gets them Sunday night? Not looking to motivate; I want to see God, the Holy Spirit transform. I want to believe. I, I, I feel like that, that faithful group, man, it lacks gospel ambition. It finds its ambition to, to Simply, um, um, make their people as is niche theologians in the world. And I'm not saying, and nor could I ever—no one could ever accuse me of not being theologically serious. We lack gospel ambition. I, I find that way too many of us are unnecessarily harsh. Unnecessarily harsh. Look at me real quick: you know that you can be right in the wrong way, huh? You know that you can be right in the wrong way. There is a way to be theologically passionate and to love truth in a way that's winsome, patient, and looks Christian. The, the first time I heard the reformed perspective in regards to how God Saves, it was repulsive to me. It was repulsive that, that, that my God would—right? I, I mean this, this, it was repulsive to me. So it, it took from that moment seven years before God let those things open up my heart and I saw them to be glorious, and they became a warm blanket to my soul. Now how absurd would it be for me to expect everyone who hears that truth to rejoice in it immediately in the same way? It took me seven years to land on there. There is a way to be, be gracious and patient and relational in how we interact with those around us that are so helpful in regards to teaching and engaging others with truth. And I find a great weakness to be in the, um, faithful section, um, a real harshness that's absurd. It's absurd that, that we were not dealt with that harshly as we wrestled with and tried to come to the end of, uh, or, or come to an understanding of what the word of God said and wrestled with texts that we, um, hadn't heard before, hadn't seen that way before. And so I think that we can be unnecessarily harsh. And then the, the third critique I would have of kind of the faithful character is that they're evangelistically lazy; they're functionally deterministic; there's little angst and a lot less prayer. It's the old accusation that we sit on our hands, and, and we're not going to do anything because God is the God of Salvation. Yeah, he absolutely is the, the, the God of Salvation. And I think what you're missing on that is that the way God has ordained to rescue and redeem is through the proclamation of the word of God, not just from pulpits, but in your neighborhoods. And I found that the faithful group assumes the gospel because they, they, they punt on their responsibility to share the gospel with those around them in the pulpit and in their world.

Now let's go, now over to the character of the fruitful, that kind of, uh, hyper Seeker, seeing 10,000 people saved every weekend, and let's move the character all the way over there. So I think, um, some of the ways the fruitful stream, um, assumes the gospel is they put numeric growth above robust truth in order to see converts. So, so they're going to kind of stay away from the severity of God, if you will; that they want to stay away from, um, sin, death, blood; they want to stay away from those. You're not going to hear a lot about, um, uh, hot-button cultural issues, and unless it's a way that's kind of kitchy and, uh, a way that kind of turns it on its head and makes love something that it's not. So they put numeric growth—numeric growth is the indicator of faithfulness; it's might equals right, and it's absurd. Uh, and then I think in the fruitful stream, another, um, legitimate issue is that there's a lack—it lacks a plan and a process to make disciples. It reads the Great Commission as: go therefore and make converts, period. And, and doesn't, doesn't read: Go make disciples, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age. So my critique there would simply be: there's no real plan to actually grow people and, and to facilitate the growth of people in the church; it's simply: get you in, get you connected in a way that keeps you here, and then let's get more people in and connected and get, and, and so I find that to be a fundamental flaw in the caricature of the fruitful churches.

Now where does that leave us? Well, well, I can tell you just in my closing minutes here, um, what, what I feel like all of this means, um, for me personally, um, I, I don't know how many days the Lord's given me; you don't know how many days the Lord's given you. I, I said this at TGC, um, two years ago, and it actually was true for a young man there, uh, we don't know that we're making it home; I, me, we really don't. Um, if you Pastor, you deal with tragedy all the time. The one thing that never hit my mind was that one day I'd have some tragedy. So I don't know how many days the Lord has for me and what he's going to give for me, uh, in regards to hours and minutes and months and years, but with the time I've been given by God, I just want to, by the Holy Spirit's power, grind it out, out, man. I want to preach hard and plead with men to repent and throw themselves upon the mercies of God, and I want to see hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of people come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ that transforms their life and leads them into a path of ever-increasing Holiness, right into glory. And I want to believe that he can do it, and I want to spend all my days doing that, and where I'm not seeing it, I want there to be whole, holy frustration in me; I want there to be an angst in me because I know he can save. Like, have you ever marveled that Saul of Tarsus became a Believer? You ever marvel at that? I mean, if there was ever a not interested, non-seeking guy out there, was it not Saul of Tarsus? I mean, Tarsus wasn't reading Reason for God on the way to Damascus, and what—Jesus kicked him off his horse: you're going to follow me. If God is able to save Augustine, if God is able to save you and I, why not those people in your city? Why not those people in your neighborhood? Why not? Then, and hear me: I think apologetics are important, but I've never checkmated anyone intellectually and seen them become a Believer, ever. I, I feel like I have won many arguments that did not lead to going: you know what, it's all making sense now; I'm going to give my life to Christ. So I'm not saying apologetics aren't important, but I'm saying it's the Holy Spirit of God that does the work of Illumination. So won't you believe that faithful Ministry is fruitful Ministry? Won't you believe that God can save? Is it going to happen slower than you want? Yeah. Might it take years to see? Maybe. Should that dampen your desire and passion to see it? Absolutely not. And I didn't even have time to talk about the faithful aspect of converts that are actually growing in their relationship with Christ. And at a conference like this, I don't know that I'm overly concerned with your faithfulness, but I think at a conference like this, I do grow concerned about whether or not you'll be hungry to practice your Doctrine in, in a way that shows you actually believe it.

Let's pray. Father, I pray that we might build by your grace with gold and silver and precious stones. Pray that we would be slower to judge, that we'd more quickly handle things we see that are bothersome in a way that would be marked as distinctively Christian. Pray that you might grant us patience with people, the same patience that you have shown us and that many other believers, uh, showed to us when we were infants on milk. God, I pray that we would believe—not just have intellectual Ascent towards biblical truths—but that we would practice and believe and trust and grow in confidence that you have made us, designed us, placed us, and we need to Simply Faithfully Herald your gospel and plead with those who are in front of us to lay their lives at the feet of the Cross—not in a way that's manipulative or in, in a way that, that would drum up converts—but rather just a steadfast prayerfulness and belief that the gospel is sufficient. And so I pray, God, that where, um, there's good and right conviction, God, that you would press it on us now. And, and Father, where I have overspoke or misspoken, God, would you, um, would you wipe it from memories and Minds, um, that they might not grow perverse plants that don't honor you. Uh, help us now. I know we'll be drinking from, uh, a fire hose for the rest of this conference. I pray that you would Mark our souls with really distinct things that will be, um, necessary for where you're taking us next. And so open our eyes where they're blind and soften our hearts where they're hard, and, um, God.

Grow us in confidence and grace. And it's for your beautiful name I pray. Amen. Love you guys. Thank you.