Preach the Word. LCBA 2024

Introduction

My name is Juston Davidson and I am humbled and honored to serve as the Lead Pastor of FBC in Mount Vernon since 21. As I’ve been given the pleasure of serving on our executive board and getting to meet many of the pastors in our association, I have become re-reminded of how strange and wild a ride it has been.

You see, I’m not from the church world at all. I was from a family that would largely be identified as backwoods and of the land from Central Missouri. We were tight knit and hard workers, we lived by a code of self-sufficiency and whatever religious influences we had were mainly from biblical themes and being out in nature. Our church life ended as a family in the 70’s when a preacher pointed his finger in my dad’s, then teenage, chest, after talking hellfire and brimstone about rock and roll. My grandfather and the preacher tussled and never did the Davidson’s ever go back.

Yet, in God’s providence, my family ended up in the town of Owensville when my Father shot a man in a small town. It was declared self-defence and the man lived, but the family of the other guy vowed revenge, so we got out of Dodge. We found a house after 6 months of looking and a job and everything was going to be fine. And for around 4 years it was. Dad was my hero and no one ever looked more forwared to going back home to deer camp each year than I did. However, at 12, my parents sat us down to tell us that divorce was coming and our world’s would soon be twisted in all kinds of ways.

My father became a fall down drunk, getting fired from all kind of jobs, to eventually being on every cop’s radar in town when he’d drive by. My mom worked 60-70 hours a week to keep the bills paid and then went back to being 18 again to relive the years she though Dad had robbed her of. It left me, and my two sisters trying to figure out who we were now in the midst of all of this chaos.

One day a friend invited me to an open dinner at FBC Owensville that they did on Wednesday nights. $2 for all you could eat chicken strips and I was their target audience. Little did he know I was hungry and mom hadn’t gotten groceries that week. I went that night, stayed for church, met great people, but also I heard about Jesus. I had already heard about him and knew who he was. That he was good, that he was God, that he died for sinners. But I became enamored with how wrong my picture of church was. This wasn’t anything like what my dad told me it was. I was there anytime the doors were open. I was singing in 2nd services worship team before I had accepted Jesus. It was just that these people were genuine and I liked being around them.

Through that time, the gospel landed right on my heart like a sumo wrestler when I came to understand that Jesus wasn’t the God of the good people but that he came to rescue sinners like me. That all the stuff I’d heard over the years was actually for me, not just those better than me. I accepted Christ as my savior and determined to follow him. I did so, poorly at first, then amazing men and women started investing in me. Pouring their lives, stories, and experiences into mine and helping me open my eyes up wider to the world that God had made.

One of the most instrumental was Tom, my youth pastor. A reformed alcoholic and trail blazer, God had called him out of a successful 6 figure job, back to his wife, his kids, and making peanuts to lead our church’s teens.

Tom helped me consider what God would have me do with my one and only life and never backed down. He’d be the first to call out my shenanigans and see through my stories to what was really happening. And, to both of our surprise, one day, through an MBC camp, God revealed to me the calling to the ministry. I fought it for so long but God impressed it into my heart like a 100-ton press.

Over the years, Tom gave way to Dr. Duke, Dick Lionberger, Mark Conyers, Steve Lewis, Don Jones, Todd Decker, Buddy Funk, Allen Brock, John Marshall, and even our own Wade Rogers. Such men have not only been confidants, champions of me and my family, guides through ministry, but also, for me, the epitome of what this calling is and can be. A pastor cares for the flock. He uses what God has given him to build up and lead the church towards a more complete picture of God and their work to make much of him.

That calling, that work, that devotion is one that is equally as romantic as it is dibilitating. There are times and seasons that wring you out like an old towel and toss you on the ground just as quickly. For me, it was especially difficult to see such men, who have meant so much to me and my calling, chewed up and spit out by Covid and the church’s response to it. Many served with distinction in one of the most challenging times of any of our lives, loving and leading well, only to be turned inside out. Whatever decisions they made the church would come after them. Some even took paycuts to keep the lights on and make sure the staff were all whole. Some kept serving and loving the Bride of Christ even when their own spouses were hospitalized and critical.

After the smoke cleared, I had 5 friends who raised me up in Full time church leadership quit and got out of the ministry entirely in the past years and It took the wind out of me. God has always placed within me an appreciation for pastors and their families, long before he ever made me one. And to see such highway miles put on my brothers really stung in a big way.

tension

Tonight, as we gather as an association of churches, as brothers and sisters around the cross of Christ, I want us to consider the calling of the gospel, the ministry of Christ towards sinners, and the role all of us has to play in it. Tonight I want to call us back to 2 timothy as we consider the calling given us as people of the gospel, outlined perfectly in chapter 4:2.

Truth

2 Timothy 4:2 (ESV)

2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

Pray

Exposition

2 Timothy 4 (ESV)

1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:

2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,

4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.

7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

9 Do your best to come to me soon.

10 For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.

11 Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.

12 Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus.

13 When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments.

14 Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.

15 Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message.

16 At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them!

17 But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.

18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

19 Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus.

20 Erastus remained at Corinth, and I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus.

21 Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers.

22 The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.

Landing