 So, here's my question. How does a pastor of a large church get to this point? If you believe it's in you, there's nothing anybody can put on you that can cancel what I put in you before you were born. I appointed you a prophet to the nation. I'm not in covenant with a person. I'm not in covenant with a political party. I'm in covenant with God Almighty. I am God Almighty. Well, in order for you to get to that point, it had to be something with your development. Maybe he got to that point because he started off like this. Now this is called the drenchinator. I'm praying about whether to follow through on this illustration. And I hear the Lord say, yes! It's hard being a pastor. I don't care what sort of a pastor you are, whether you are a senior pastor, whether you are an associate pastor, whether you are a youth pastor, it's difficult. And there are some qualifications that are required biblically speaking for someone to be a pastor. We're going to look at those qualifications in just a little bit. But have you ever noticed when we sit and talk about how many people there are out there with bad, I mean heretical doctor, I mean, it's almost like they come up with this stuff. It's as though they sit in a room and figure out what is the most ridiculous thing that I can come up with. And then let me just say, let's just throw something on the wall and see what sticks. I mean, there's no shortage of heretics out there. There's no shortage of bad doctor now that there's no shortage of bad teachers and people doing all sorts of ungodly things in the name of Jesus. But have you noticed something about these people? One have you noticed increasingly how many of them are young now all bad teachers, all bad doctrine, all heretical teachings don't come from young people. There are some older people that are out there. We're going to talk about them as well. But the question is, should our pastors be of a certain age? Is the problem or one of the big problems or a problem in the churches in America, is it their age? Is it that we've got too many young pastors because sometimes when you're young, being young can cause you to do silly things, things that you just didn't think of, things like this. How does a pastor get to that point? How do you get to where you thought about this? You wrote out your sermon, you thought to yourself, you know what? This will be a cool illustration just to spit my hand and rub it on somebody. Who does that? You tend not to see older men do that. Of course, nowadays you're seeing more and more older men do things that younger men would do, things that are typically relegated towards or for younger people. But having this sort of indiscretion, this idea that comes to your head and no one stops you once because you're not surrounded by the right people. But also, could it be because you started off entirely too young? Even now he's in his 30s. He's been a pastor for some time, Mike Todd has. And so he's been a young pastor his entire life as a pastor. It makes you wonder who have been the men that have been guiding him. And when you're a young pastor and you don't have people there that are around you to kind of guide you to teach you, one of the things that tends to suffer the most is going to be your doctor. You'll say just about eating everything and because you've got other people who are used to hearing bad doctrine, they don't call you on it. I don't want you to believe the prosperity gospel or the poverty gospel. I want you to believe in the purpose gospel. More money, more purpose. When I have more money, because my money is directed by God, more money means more what? Purpose. I can reach people. We're here. The host, Lord, the hostess. Now before I continue, I just, that is an idea that obviously, obviously is not biblical. It's not biblical because he hadn't been trained that or because he listened to the wrong people. And so I want to go ahead and continue playing the clip because I think a lot of these young people because of their environment, how they're brought up, they want to remain relevant or be relevant. So let me just finish playing that clip because he says something that lets you know that he wants to be young, act young and maybe he wants to appeal to young people. I don't want you to believe I can reach people. We're here. The host, Lord, the hostess. Okay. Here we go. Dum-dums, Cheetos. As a matter of fact, you heard right. He said, you all pardon me if it bothers you, but he said the host love the hostess. Again, did you write this out? And when you looked at it and when you made me a rehearsal sermon, did it cause you to think something? Did it cause you nothing? Nothing in his mind said, you know what? That's not going to go right lower well, especially with somebody who might be older. For some younger people, it might not even bother them. They might be so immature that it's not a big deal. But to somebody with some age or somebody who it might offend, he doesn't even think about that. Well, as a pastor, you're supposed to think of those things. But because you are too close to the world or you're trying to be too friendly with the world, then that's how you find yourself in trouble. A little pastor that James brings up, he says in chapter four, a verse four of James says, you adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God, but trying to be somebody relevant to try to be friends with the world in order to draw them in, I get that you want to bring people in. I really do. I think that's admirable that you want to have people, younger people, people of the world to come to Christ. But there's a certain line that we don't want to cross. We don't want to compromise. We want to still make people understand that where they're coming from is different than where they're going to. In other words, being worldly is one thing, but we are striving to be holy. We are striving our best to be godly. And you come across people, it's not just him. Obviously, there are more and more people who are trying to be like the world, maybe even in terms of, because now being overly masculine as a man, well, that's just out of favor. That's not invoked to be a masculine man. Now, pastors are called to be men. We're going to look at the qualifications in a little bit, but you've got more and more pastors who are kind of taking the line down in terms of their masculinity and even bringing a little bit of femininity in it, and it's becoming more and more evident. Such as it is with this person, Matthew Stevenson. And you will need to come here. That's for that ovary thing, that uterus issue. You will be healed. That bleeding, do I have a praiser in it? That bleeding is stopping now. Oh, now. Bad doctrine for Matthew Stevens is not, probably not even his biggest issue. And you would think that, especially coming from me, that doctrine matters. But and I'm saying that that might not even be his biggest issue. When you're young, a lot of things fall by the wayside, not just doctrine, but again, how you conduct yourselves. And I mentioned the masculinity or, in his case, the lack thereof. It's glaring. It's just the mannerisms. And you can see sometimes when you look at certain people, there are times where it's like there's something that just doesn't quite measure up. I'm I'm seeing something. I mean, and you turn to maybe your friend or something else. Hey, is it me? Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, he hadn't he hadn't maybe said it. But even without him saying it, it seems as though there's something a bit off here. Womanhood is a call. Daughterhood is a purpose. It is not just a matter of how you be. It's a matter of your purpose. And you got to improv. Now, yeah, and you heard what he said. You and maybe we might need to just dev a little bit deeper into this particular person who is over the all nations group of churches at the all nations New York and all nation Chicago. If you're part of all nations, do yourself a favor. Do your family a favor. Leave. Do your soul a favor and leave. Now, if you think I'm being too critical about, let's say, this person's dressed as a tire, I'm not making this up. These are the clothes, the the attire that he decided to put on. This is him. Now, this this this get up that he has over to the to the right or to the left. It's it's it calls into question his manhood. It calls into question what he's thinking. We are not to wear anything that resembles anything that looks like what a woman wears. And of course, now he's proud of that with the hairstyles and so forth, the mannerisms and so that's what's happening today, because that's not that's not a big deal. Is he preaching the word? Who are we to say who God can use? Well, we're only we'll only say who God can use based on what God says, who God says he can use. And so with that being said, let's go ahead and just even pull up the qualifications of a pastor. Paul brings those up in the Bible. In 1 Peter, I'm sorry, 1 Timothy chapter three, let's look at them. He says it is a trustworthy saying if anyone aspires to the office of an overseer, he desires no task. And so it is OK for a person to desire even even for young people to want to be pastors, I'm of the opinion that we need more older pastors and younger pastors. Now, let me just say this because someone's going to say, Corey, I think it's because of your age, you might be looking down on younger people and so therefore you might not want a younger pastor. Well, Newsflash, the pastor of the church that I go to happens to be young. And so now how young he is in he is in his 30s. And so there's going to be some thing is just natural that he might need or might lack or so forth, because what do you lack as a 30 year old? Well, experience the one thing and anyone who's over 40 or 50 can tell you about what it's like to be in your 20s and 30s. The one thing of a 20 year old or 30 year old can't tell you is what it's like to be older. Things come with age experiences, good experiences, bad experiences. And the bad experiences for the most part are the ones that help us the most. Those are the ones that teach us how to act, how not to act, how to have patience and long suffering, how to deal with people who you don't want to deal with, how to deal with situations that are uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable builds your character and grows you. And so let's go ahead and finish looking at this. But the Bible says that if anyone who desires this position, they desire a no, it's a noble task. And so you can desire to be a pastor. You really can. However, there are some qualifications that go with that. Let's let's finish looking at what he says. He says, therefore, an overseer, this pastor must be above reproach. We can stop there. He has to be someone that people aren't coming at and says, he got this against you, got that against you, you act this way, you behave this way. So he must be above reproach to the husband of one wife. Well, that necessarily means he cannot be a woman. I understand that society says that a woman can have a wife, but not according to God. So he must be a male and have only one wife. He says also that he must be sober minded, sober minded means, guys, that you have to have some sort of self control about yourself. In other words, that when things come at you, you do not lose your wits about yourself when things are coming all different directions. You can think rationally. You don't lose control. You don't fly off at the handle. That's what that means. So remind yourself of these two words are cousins of each other, respectable. In other words, people need to be able to look at you and hear from you and watch you and see someone best respectable. They don't necessarily have to disagree. I mean, agree with you. There are plenty of men of God out there or pastors who you may disagree with, but you still have some level of respect. You look at them and say, you know what? The way that he carries himself, the way that he speaks. When he walks in the room, there's something about just him walking in. Amen. Let's continue. He must be hospitable and there's nothing wrong with someone being nice, being hospitable, inviting and so forth. But again, all of these have to compliment each other. He has to be, uh oh, here's a red flag right here. Able to teach. You'll notice the one thing that many of these, matter of fact, not many, all of the men that we're talking about, they have a hard time teaching or they're going to blur their teaching, their doctrine with things that bring up the world or bring in the world to try to be more relevant. We're talking about some of these things that young pastors have to deal with. But he needs to be able to teach. As a matter of fact, the office that's given is shepherd or pastor teacher. When you look in in Ephesians four, it's not five offices that are mentioned. There's four. The last one has two parts to it, pastor, shepherd and teacher. So you must be able to teach three, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not always looking for an argument or a fight, not a lover of money. There is a big issue there because what happens is when you start seeing a little bit of favorability and the coffers are being filled up, that can be a little bit intoxicating because you want to kind of keep the gravy chain train rolling. Remember that. Secondly, a next. He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive because if he cannot handle or if no one knows how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into condemnation. Now, here's a tricky one, because how how recent is recent? Now, there's a little bit of difference in the church today versus then, because when Paul or anyone else is planning a church, the people that they would have there to lead the church, all of them at the founding of the church were recent converts. And so he's not necessarily speaking about acts, but he's speaking about going forward. The reason why is because you don't want someone who's young, who's new to get turned over and twisted around by the devil. Look what he says. He must not be a recent convert or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Because what can happen is you can get a pat on your back. You can feel a certain way and people are, hey, this guy is anointed young man, X, Y and Z, blah, blah, blah. And he's filling himself. It's hard enough to be an older person and to try to control the the the ego that was swell up because someone has patted you on the back and told you how great you are and people are looking at you. There are men that would like to be able to stand up and preach before because men have egos to and men are competitive. Men like to be like other men. We can pay ourselves to other men. That's just natural human nature. And then you might have the attention of different women in the church or women outside of church. And so he's got to be able to handle that. And let's be honest, it's harder for a younger man than it is for an older man, even though older men do fall into into temptation, but it's even more so for younger people. Let's continue. He says, moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders. That's an interesting point that Paul puts there so that he may not fall into disgrace into a snare of the devil. In other words, he needs to be someone that even the outsiders can look up to and have some level of respect, which goes back to one of the other qualifications, because if I'm presenting the gospel and I want people from the outside to come in, why would they come into someone who they don't like or they don't trust? And so here lies a problem that we have. Now, we're seeing more and more of young people who do not fit, not who don't just miss one qualification, but they miss out on several qualifications. I mean, I'm even thinking of our good friend, at least to the north of me, our good friend in the Midwest, our good friend on Lake Michigan. That's right. Our good friend Marcus Wright, he's a young person. He's still young as a pastor, also a person who has been trying to spread the gospel. If you believe that's what he's doing, spread the gospel, who is trying to put himself up, he has made some glaring mistakes. And a lot of it has been because of his youth. He has not had an older man to go beside him. And so he will just say and do anything and then think anyone who doesn't like him, that they might be jealous. Y'all remember when we were younger in school, some of you might do to your children right now, they'll say that child doesn't like you because they're jealous of you. And so it's like he has that same sort of attitude, that same sort of kindergarten, first grade attitude. They don't like me because they're jealous. They don't have the spirit, their Pharisees, their religious. That's him. Here's a person who does not have a sound or good grasp on the scriptures, and it's all for the most part, not just his ego, but do in large part to his youth. Now, he's speaking about letting the devil know what he can and can't do. Marcus, let me just help you out. The devil is not in any way, shape or fashion, intimidated by you. He's not intimidated by me. The only person that he's ever been intimidated by died on the cross. And he knows that he's on broad time. He's not afraid of you or me or anyone else. I can promise you that. And so while you're trying to shout as though you're going to put some fear into his heart, it's not going to happen. But what you ought to do is, as the Bible says, teach what a chorus with sound doctor. We're going to pull that passage up in a little bit. But I wonder if you all notice also that some of the people whose names I've put up who are on the the thumbnail, some of these people aren't young. But guess what? Just about every false, older, false teacher or older heretic or older, false prophet, guess what they were before? They used to be younger, false teachers, false prophets, younger heretics. Now, some did kind of graduate of that. But most of them started off that way. For example, here's our friend that we spoke of Steven Fertig. Steven Fertig is 42 years old. But look when he became a pastor. He became a pastor at age 22. Do you all think that that may have been an issue becoming a pastor at such a young age and then also having some success to come about that? Giving young people immediate success does something to you. If you don't believe me, go look at the NFL, go look at the MLB, go look at the NBA, go look at Hollywood. These young people who get some success in how they have these problems. These people become suicidal. They become abusers of drugs and so forth. Experimenting with their sexuality. They're more concerned about likes, clicks, who's following and so forth. And so you see that with your pastors. When your pastor is more frat boy, more down to earth, kind of want to be your homie sort of person, that's not a good look. Do you want to be friendly with the people in your congregation? Sure, but there needs to be a certain level of respect that's going by you that I can promise you. You acting like them is or acting like a child, I should speak, is not the way you get it. You may get a large crowd and he has you may get attention and people think that you got a cool church and we love the way you do things. Well, the world will love the way you do things if you do them worldly. Now, the person who is who has probably showed them how to do it the best way, he's not a young pastor, but he started off as a young pastor. It was given to him not because he earned it, but because his father passed away. And when his father passed away, he was all it was already the largest church in America. And so the keys are turned over. Can you imagine giving the keys to an expensive car to a young person? How is that person going to handle it? And so obviously I'm speaking of good old smiling Joe. He's 59 years old, but he wasn't always 59, but he's always had bad doctor. He's always been loose with the text, loose with the scriptures. And that was because he started off young. And when he started off young, well, who was not there? His father. And he didn't have the employee of a lot of older men to kind of guide him. Say, hey, listen, we might not one or maybe he does. Maybe he's got people who are just the same way, but it's not just him. There are other people that want to be culturally relevant, not older. I mean, not young people, but older. One of my favorite heretics and false teachers, not to say that I like them or what they're doing, but it just sticks out. He's here in the Dallas area. I've met him a few times. I've got I've got to be around. So when I say something about him, I know of what I speak of because I've witnessed it, I've seen it and I've heard it out of his home, his own mouth. That is good old Freddie Haynes. Now, Freddie became 59, but he became a pastor at age 22. Freddie wants to be culturally relevant. He is he leans to the other side where he wants to be more in Afrocentric Black Lives Matter. Matter of fact, there's a banner on the side of the church rolled by a few days ago that says still Black Lives Matter. That is his focus. And so all this time he's been kind of the social club kind of guy. People that went to this church, as long as I've known it, they've gone to the church. It's not been a church. It's been a social club. It's been a meet and greet, a business opportunity and a sexual come up. That's what it is. There's and there's no one in the city, maybe other than members who might be a little bit defensive who would say, no, you've got that wrong. No, that's just who Freddie Haynes is. And that's just who Friendship West Baptist Church is. That's the name of the church. And if you go there, you're not getting a sermon. You're getting a social club meeting. You're going to get some sort of political rally going on there. But the doctor, no, because what you're going to see is some sort of Afrocentric images, putting your face like the Ankh and the African pyramid, the Egyptian pyramids and so forth. So that's what you get because he doesn't understand what the scripture said because all of his tenure as a pastor from a young person growing up in this, he hasn't developed that because there was no one to guide him. You also saw in there a person by the name of Judah Smith. Judah Smith is someone who has he grew in popularity because of one who his congregants are Justin Bieber, Kardashians and a few other people. And so Judah is what is he, 43 now, but he became a pastor at 29. As a pastor, obviously in the area that he's in, it's a kind of a more progressive area of the country. And so there are some progressive elements that you'll see in his church. Why? Because that's how he grew up. That's how he started off his pastoral. And he wants to be more inviting, let you be kind of more, you kind of mow the doctrine, the Bible to yourself, because that's even how his book that he wrote is titled, Jesus is. Why a book about Jesus where you're basically asking people to fill in the blank? So many books about the church would be a pastor saying, Jesus is, in fact, this all as a pastor filling the blank for you. Yeah, the book obviously is for all ages, but I certainly had Justin in mind when I was writing it and we talked quite a bit about it and certainly I think what young people are looking for today is probably not just truth and information forced down their throat, so to speak, but they really want an honest conversation and a dialogue. And that's that's what we're hoping hoping to do here with this project. But what you can't do is you can't blur the lines. You can't let people fill in the blanks about who Jesus is. No, you have to tell them, let the word tell them. It's not that to me, Jesus is this, to me, Jesus is love, to me, Jesus is forgiving. Well, no, because people craft a Jesus that models them, that mirrors them. If I am engaged in some sort of sexual sin, well, then I want a Jesus who identifies with that and Jesus who's tolerant of that. If I am someone who is more into social issues and I want a Jesus who's also out to liberate people. If I am into, let's say, dealing with the climate and I want a Jesus who is who is environmentally responsible, that's what I want. I want a Jesus like myself, but the Bible tells us in Exodus, excuse me, that not to create a God of our own making, create a graven or carbon, a carbon or graved image. But it doesn't have to be someone that we chisel ourselves. It can be a God of our own making, even in our mind. To me, God is this. And so because he has that and because he's culturally and politically aware, especially because of the environment that he's in, he's going to be careful to say things that younger folks or people in that environment will be OK with. I don't know if you heard it, but the the the conversation that he had about he and his wife and about masturbation and how masturbation can be a gift or is a gift from God? Yeah, he said that. I know for Chelsea and I may not be popular. I know Dr. Dobson and there are many other teachers out there that teach different things, but we've definitely landed on this topic that it can be very much a productive tool and I'll just be very candid. When I'm traveling away from Chelsea and when I can fantasize about Chelsea and use masturbation as a gift to keep myself focused. And so obviously, inherently, there are some dangers in that. And so but you would give your your community, the people that, of course, that's what he calls his church, that your community. You would give them license to go into that because obviously when you do that, your mind is not going to stay on her. Your wife is going to be on all these other people. So that becomes an issue. But because of his youth, it becomes a problem. And he doesn't see that. And so being young can be a huge problem, especially if you want to take your youth or your pastoral into a socially conscious area where God never thought of. And then when you do that, you start missing the Bible altogether. You start missing God altogether and you invent your own doctrine. Colin Kaepernick is trying to embrace his somebodiness as a black person. But while trying to do that, whiteness is always telling him what he cannot do. We decided you may try to suppress us and hold us down. But we got too much John Lewis in us. We got too much Amelia Boynton in us. We've got too much Martin King in us. We've got Ella Baker in us. And we who believe in freedom will not rest until it comes. And we popped up into our mother God's hands. Yeah, he said our mother God's hand. And so for almost 40 years, he's been a young frat boy. He's been a young frat boy with the church who decided to become more socially conscious because of the area of town that he's in, rather than sharing the gospel, you want to share the good news of a particular political persuasion. And I can promise you this, unless there's repentance, you will have to deal with God on that. Now, being young is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be. Remember, Paul tells Timothy, he tells him in first Timothy 412, he says, let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, set them an example in conduct, set them an example in love, set them an example in faith, set them an example in purity. That's what a young preacher or pastor is supposed to do. So it could be possible that you can be young as a pastor and grow. Now, incidentally, though, the belief is that Timothy was about 40 when Paul says this, so he's calling him young or his youth, but he's about 40, which kind of tells you something because then remember in this culture, you didn't you didn't start doing things until you were 30 or above. Nowadays, the younger, the better. But again, there are some things that will be missing with a young age. That is wisdom because you can get all of these different traps that will come your way. Speaking of a Judah Smith, one of his former, one of his congregants had another former pastor who was a celebrity pastor. You all know what I'm talking about. That is Carl Lentz, the failed Carl Lentz of excuse me, of Hillsong, New York. And of course, we see that what has happened to him because of the attention, the fame being brought on the view of being brought on this station that be interviewed because you're so much like the world, they want to talk to you. And what comes because of that? Worldly people want to get with you and then you in turn want to get with the worldly people. But there are some things, there's some issues that come with being a young pastor. One, one of the one of the hurdles is age, obviously. You can say what you want to say, but age, there's just not enough real life experiences. And so how do you handle what you've never handled before? How do you deal with the things that you've never experienced before? Because being young, you haven't been afforded the opportunity to deal with all the other things and the way you look at things. You look at certain things from an 18 year old standpoint, that's not going to be the same with that. You look at the same thing when you're 28 or 38 or 48 or 58. Anyone and now what's funny is younger folks might be the ones that would disagree, but you won't find an older person on the planet that's going to say, yeah, you know what you're what you might nowadays. You might have someone who might have been partaking of some some drugs a little bit too much. But any reasonable older person will tell you, yeah, there is some wisdom in becoming older. It just just is what it is. And of course, what the Bible says. But secondly, there's a balance that younger pastors have. And this is why you see a lot of these pastors falling because the balance of family and the ministry or in this case, a lot of young folks are kind of career oriented. And so their career, which is a good career, if you are a pastor, you might spend too much time there and neglect the family. And then because of that, you open up an opportunity for the enemy to come in. That's why you have a car lens. That's why you have even Freddie Haynes, who was indulged. That's why you have other pastors who have succumbed, because it can be a temptation, even older pastors struggle with this. But after a while, wisdom comes in and says, you know what? I'm going home. You all the next in charge would have you. We used to have this this rule that stated that you couldn't come to the church more than twice a week or three times a week. Why? Because if you hear every day, even if you care for the body, which is wonderful, if you're here every day, who's at home with your family? Who's at home with your wife? Who's at home with your children? And so, you know, we don't need you here every day. We'll be fine. The church has been fine without you. We'll still be fine without you. But one of the other things also is being young. You're concerned about relevancy because who doesn't want their church to be successful? And then they're going to define what success is. But you want people to come in and to enjoy the atmosphere and so forth. And so you might tailor the atmosphere to be like the world or be like, I get that you want an inviting atmosphere. As a matter of fact, our church has an inviting atmosphere, but we cannot be the kind of church where we'll just blur the lines between the world and the church and then just compromise and just be whatever they are. Remember to be to be friends with the world is be in is empty with God. And so we want to resist trying to be culturally relevant. People that want to be relevant tend not to care much about the Bible. They're not Biblical sound. Biblical sound folks don't care about being relevant. But young folks grow up in a world where they are taught to be relevant. This is the environment that people have brought up in when you when you are born in this society, this environment. Now think about this for a second. If you are in your teens or your 20s, this is the word that we're seeing now. This is the word that you've been that you've been brought up in. And everything is at your disposal. We're not allowed to be insulted. No one is allowed to insult you because you're the greatest thing ever. You probably you may not have seen a bully in your life. If you did, the teacher dealt with that person. No one can pick on you. And so you never learn how to deal with with with difficulties in life. You didn't learn how to deal with people who didn't like you. People who don't like you on Facebook or YouTube or whatever. You just you just block what would have you. But that's not the way the world works and not knowing how to deal with conflict or have or have a good grasp on conflict resolution as a pastor can be a problem. I've seen it happen, be a problem with young people, even a young pastor, even when it comes to their marriages. Also a pastor, a young pastor, biggest issue, one of the big issues is going to be respect others, respecting them and them respecting others. Now, others respecting them because of their age. Well, that comes to the territory and they're going to make you earn it. And sometimes young folks don't want to prove that they need to be respected. Even the pastor, you're going to respect me because I'm a pastor. Well, no, I can go to the church down the street and that might not fly well with them. But then also how do you respect older people who you want them to look at you a certain way and you feel like you're old, you're in charge of them. And as a shepherd, you are but there's a balance. You're shepherding someone who's been around the block a lot more than you have. And so and they may even know the trip is more than you have, more than you do that that can be the case. And so how do you balance that? How do you balance that you being respected by elders and elders respecting you? And then another thing is just patience. You don't learn patience. There's that, you know, we've never seen in the history of the world a patient, five year old, a patient teenager. They may be patient for their age, but just being patient. Things don't come your way. And so we see that. And so now we see a lot of young pastors who will just throw caution to the wind and do anything just to make something happen. We saw the other day, this young pastor who was frustrated, who wanted his church to buy him a watch. Well, first of all, if you're faithful to the Lord, then the Lord will be faithful to you and you buy your own watch. But these silly things come about oftentimes from young people or from older people who have just been silly their entire life. They were they were silly young pastors. And now because the Lord hadn't taken them out, they're still silly older pastors and then also ego. I can tell you this as a younger pastor, assistant pastor and so forth and even having the time, the the the the pleasure, the honor of leading a little congregation. Being younger and people say, if you if you do your job the right way, if as a pastor, you do your job effectively, somebody and I'm not speaking about these people who are just they're off a bit. That's just this is a nice way of putting they're they're a bit off. I'm not speaking about them, but I'm speaking about people who they have good intentions, a good heart. If you do things the right way, you preach it right, you live right. Do you know what's going to happen? Somebody's going to patch on your back. Oh, Pastor Corey, that was wonderful. That was awesome. I love the way you broke that. I love the way you said that. I love this. I love that. You start feeling like, yeah, you know what? I got this feel good. And you start getting the attention of men and women. You and it happens. They're looking at you. There are times where you get up to preach and there will be some women in the church who will sit in the front row and and skirts aren't as long as they used to be. And they're in the front row for a reason. They're bad in their eyes, ladies. You can testify to this because you know some ladies that might do not you ladies, but some people that you know of that you've been that you've been cutting your eyes at. Right. I'm playing. But there are some ladies out there, some of the passion in the chat. You know what I'm speaking up to. They might want you to give the church hug where you're supposed to kind of have a little distance between your chest and their chest. And there are some women who don't respect the church. They give you a little club hug, right? A little college frat hug. Well, and how do you deal with that? And then there are some men who's like, yeah, passing, they want it, they want to get up on them and they they become. Yes, man. And the next, you know, they're helping to inflate your ego. It happens. It's one of the reasons why it caused me to fall because your ego getting stroke. Well, the best thing that ever happened to me, I can tell you, this was the fall and the hard fall. James says to not let many people become teachers because there's a strict and judge or strict condemnation. So that was the better thing for me. And so because of that, I'm not able to succumb to some of the same things because of that particular fall. That was helpful because guess what? Some of the same things that might have caught me off guard. Then they just won't one. Because again, you stick your hand in fire and get burned. You know what you're not going to do? You know what you're likely not going to do again? Put your hand in fire. And so because of that, that helped me. A lot of younger people don't have that for the benefit to help them, which is why there needs to be some older people there with them. Let's go back to this passage. Let's go back to matter of fact, let's go to excuse me, Titus, too. I want to put this passage up. He says, but as for you, this is Paul talking to Titus. He says, teach what a course with sound doctrine older men are to be sober minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanders or slaves to much wine. By the way, can we bring back church mothers? Let's bring back church mothers. Anyway, he says they are to teach what is good and so train young women to love their husbands and children to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husband. What that the word of God may not be reviled, likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Now, Paul is telling Titus, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. He says, show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works and in your teaching, show integrity, dignity and sound speech that cannot be condemned so that an opportunity may not be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. So that is a good word, not just for the pastor, the young pastor, but for everyone, for those who are in the church, the older women towards the younger women, the older men towards the younger man, the pastor, even the elders that might be there to have some older men around you to teach you. So if you were a pastor or you were an inspiring pastor, young pastor, what I would recommend to do one, make sure that there be somebody there that's old enough that you can lean on and say, hey, what do you think about this? Even though you might be the decision maker, the lead pastor, senior pastor, however it is, however it's set up in your church. But the Bible is clear about, of course, we don't see very the young pastor that we do see, the young pastor that we do see is Jesus. Well, it's a little bit different with him, right? It's a little bit different because he's a lot older than everyone else. I mean, he he he created everyone else. And so I would say this again, I'm not against young pastors. Again, the pastor of our church is a younger pastor. And so I could not be against young pastor. But I want you to notice, though, I want you to pay attention to notice when you see a lot of these heresies, when you see a lot of these outrageous videos that they tend to be coming from one of two people, either people who are young or older pastors who were young pastors who never developed. And so I think it'd be a good thing for us just to be be mindful of that, to make sure that when we're out there, if we're looking for a church, one of the things that I look for, if I am looking for a church, I'm looking for now not right now, but if I'm looking for a church, I'm looking for one where there's some wisdom there. Because above all else, I want the pastor to have some wisdom. I want us to have wisdom. I want us to be able to glean off of each other, to learn off of each other. I want there to be some older men or older women in the church to turn to to help us out. And so again, I'm not saying that being a young pastor is a bad thing. I am saying that being a young pastor is something that we should be concerned about if we've got too many young pastors. I would wish in a perfect world, of course, we don't have a perfect world, but in a perfect world, all the pastors will be older and seasoned and not trying to gain some fame and not trying to establish their brand and so forth and build off of that and become and become CEO pastors. Once we get this church, you know, I met a pastor who was thinking about opening up a second location and now this was when I was a financial advisor. He wanted to open up a second location and he wanted us to come in and talk to his congregation about just some sound wise investment strategy. So we said, OK, fine, we went there. They had about 15 people at his church. And I'm thinking you already want to build another church and you want. Why don't you just be faithful over what God has given you? Focus on that. Be be be comfortable with the 10, the 15, the 100, the 200 members that you do have, because I can tell you this from experience, dealing with the affairs of people and their life and all because all things that come at you as a pastor, isn't just doctrinal. But I'm asking you, hey, can you explain first Timothy to one? Can you explain this part? And no, oftentimes, hey pastor, I've got an issue with my wife or with my children. I'm having some some some mental issues. I've got some problems. And so a lot of that is there as well. And so I would say now for you all that do have a young pastor, makes you pray for pray for him, pray for him, pray for him. Now, don't let him know how great he is, how great he is too much. Because, again, that will go to his head. But in an ideal world, you would have a lot of older pastors. But again, this is not a world. It's a fallen world. So we're going to have young pastors because older men have a catered their responsibilities. And so again, it's not a bad thing to have a young pastor. But cautiously, we should hope that we have more older pastors. And so that's I think would be in an ideal world. Amen.