All right. Veritas. How are we doing this morning? All right. It's all right. Good. Well, I'm doing well. Happy to see you all. This is such a sweet Sunday to see a lot of our college students back. And if we haven't met, my name is Danny. You probably already heard that. I have the awesome privilege of being our college ministry director. And we're gonna get into the sermon. But first I just wanted to really briefly update you about some things that have happened the last week. Cause you'll remember this last couple weeks was kind of our welcome week. We were meeting students on campus. And then this last Sunday night, we had a kickoff at Kirkwood. And then on Thursday, we had our first Thursday of the fall semester for Salt Co. Here in our building. And I just wanted to thank you for praying. For praying to reach college students, to meet college students. God's just been doing sweet things in our ministry. He's been stirring up students that wanna pass on the gospel, that, that love the gospel, and through your prayers, through God's grace, man, we had a sweet kickoff season. We had a few hundred students come to our kickoff on Sunday, and we actually had, I think the number was around 375 students in our building on Thursday, which is awesome. Yeah, we can get excited about that because it speaks to what God is doing in this generation of raising up people hungry for the Lord, for people zealous to reach other students with the gospel and God just continuing to be faithful. And my call to you is to. To please not stop praying. We don't just need prayers when ministry season kicks off. If we really believe that all things hold together in Christ, which we do, if he was to take his hand off of this ministry for one second, it would all fall apart. And so keep praying. Keep seeking the Lord on our behalf. We're thankful for you and thankful to be at a church that supported us in so many ways. So with that said, you have already heard several times what we're talking about this Sunday. This idea of us being a next generation church church. And if you've been around Veritas any length of time, you've probably heard that in one way or another. Maybe you've heard us say we're a multi generational church that cares about the next generation. Maybe you've heard us say we're a church that wants to reach the next generation. Either way, hard to be in this culture for very long of our church without knowing, hey, we care deeply about the next generation. The young people in this church in this city, in our homes that are going to be here after we're gone. We say this a lot. Veritas is a next generation church. A church made up of many generations, but also a church that cares deeply about pouring into and raising up the next generation. Now here's why I believe we need to have a conversation about what that means for us and why we're a next generation church. I think it could be really easy to hear us talk about the next generation over and over and start to wonder if you only have a part to play in this church. If you're under 30 years old, some of you might actually hear us talk about next generation church. Next generation church over and over and feel a little bit like I did when I was in Little League. Now let me explain. When I was a kid, I loved baseball. I probably would have had a long, promising career if I kept going. I like to think I was a good hitter and fielder. I practiced with my dad in the backyard. I really wanted to do well. But here's the problem and the great tragedy of my baseball career. The coaches had quite a few sons that were on the team as well. So when the time came for who was getting what infield positions, by some miracle and coincidence, it was all the coaches sons. It's funny how that works out. And so here's what happened and here's what that meant for me. Basically, when it comes to fielding, I felt like I was benched. Now, I wasn't technically benched. They gave me like right field or something like that. But let's be honest, guys as an 8 year old, no 8 year old with their little noodle arms is gonna hit the ball that far to the outfield. So I just never got to really play in the action. So I was standing there, I was seeing what was going on. I was a part of things. But all the whole time really feeling like I didn't really have a part to play when it mattered, I felt like I was benched. And my fear is when we talk about being a next generation church, that's the feeling some of you might get. Like you're watching from the sidelines, you're excited about what's going on, you're thankful for it. You just don't know, like, do I have a part to play? And you're wondering, am I going to get left behind in a church that is just trying to be trendy or relevant or only reach or care about young people? And while the truth that we need to remind ourselves of is of course we are not interested in in making a big deal about the next generation because we want to be trendy or cool. The question still needs to be answered. Why does Veritas care so much about the next generation? Why is this such a value for our church? But here's what I really want to help us consider this morning is a question underneath that or a better question to ask. And it's this. What if being a part of a next generation church isn't an invitation to irrelevance or uselessness, but deep purpose, no matter what stage of life you're in? And what if you actually have a bigger part to play here than you think because we're a next generation church? Like, what if we're inviting you actually into something that is worth making your life about and investing your time and resources and energy into? That's the question I kind of want to help us get the answer to. And here's where we're going this morning. We're going to be in two passages that are going to help us understand why we make such a big deal about the next generation here. And as we do, here's my hope for you. If you are someone who wants to serve and love and be a participant in this church and to get in the game, I hope where we're going today it helps you walk out these doors with a sense of renewed purpose because you know you have an indispensable role to play in this church no matter what generation you're in. And if you're someone who kind of comes to this church, but honestly, if we're being honest, is more of a consumer than a contributor, I hope where we're going today challenges you to lean in, get in the game and begin to play the role God has for you because it's vitally important. So if you have your Bibles, flip them to Judges 2 starting in verse 6. That's the first passage we're going to be in this morning. And as you flip there, let me set the stage for you. At this point in the Old Testament, at this point in the biblical story, God had just used Moses to bring Israel, God's people, out of slavery to Egypt. And then he just used Joshua to bring them into the promised land. They had been delivered from slavery. They are now into the land God promised them. And it's at this point in the story we come to Judges 2. We're going to be starting in verse 6 says this. When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land and the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work the Lord had done for Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath Harris, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. We're going to continue in this story in a second, but we have to pause there because I want to help point out something to you that's going to help you understand kind of the mood of God's people at this time. Because if you were a part of Israel at this point in their history, it would have been really hard not to be incredibly optimistic about where the future of Israel was headed. Like, think about what had just happened. God's promises had come true. Israel was dwelling in the land God promised them. The people were following God with their whole heart. The future never seemed brighter. But then we get to the second half of verse 10, and if you were here last week, you'll remember Jake mentioned that Acts 2, 32, 37. That's a passage that has haunted him. And as I've been preparing for this sermon, this verse, Judges 2, verse 10, is a verse that haunts me. This is what it says. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work he had done for Israel in veritas. It is impossible to overstate the depth of disaster that's contained in that short sentence. This is one of the most important verses in this whole book of Judges, because it sets the tone and trajectory for where the rest of Israel's story is going to go. And you see that trajectory immediately as we read the result of this generational failure. Look at verses 11 through 15 with me. It says this. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the bowels, and they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods from among whom the God of the peoples who were around them and bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served the bowels and the Asherah. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them, and he sold them into the hands of their surrounding enemies so they could no longer Withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress. Veritas what happened? Israel was in their glory days. Everything was going right. They had freedom from slavery, the presence of God, their own kingdom. They had a generation of people following God. There's excitement, energy, hope, what could go wrong? And yet in a matter of a paragraph, they lost it all. Slavery became their reality again. Their land was ripped from them. God's face was now turned towards them, not in blessing, but in generation judgment. And this new generation had abandoned the one true God for the cultural idol of their day. And this kicks off one of the worst eras of Israel's history. An era that actually ends with Israel's enemies, the Philistines capturing the Ark of the Covenant. This symbol of God's presence defeating Israel in battle with leading one of the Israelites to make this profound statement right before they died. The glory of God has departed. The glory of God has departed. And that is a great way to describe judges 2, 6, 15 and what happened to Israel. They had God's presence, they had God's blessing, they had God's people. And yet by one generation later, the glory had departed. So what do we learn from that? Why are we examining and looking at this tragic story in the chapter of God's people? It's because this tragic chapter in the history of God's people will be repeated over and over again in any church that fails to take seriously the passing on of the faith to the next generation. See, while this text is a witness to the failure of this current generation that abandoned the faith. And young people in this room need to hear that. You cannot coast on your parents faith or grandparents faith, but need to decide if you will make it. What I want to point out right now is that this is also a witness to a failure of the generation before them who had failed to pass on the faith for when they were gone. It's a witness to what will happen when a generation of God's people fails to pass on the faith to who's next. One Bible scholar puts it like this. He says this text is a witness to the failure of the community to keep alive its memory of God's gracious saving acts. All that follows in this book is a consequence of Israel's loss of memory. What do we learn from this text? We learn the first answer to why we care so much about being a next generation church. You could put it like this. We're a next generation church because passing on the faith is how we preserve the faith. Passing on the faith, that is how God has ordained his people would preserve the faith in their churches. Their communities were cities. And we are a next generation church because we care about the faith here in Veritas and here in Cedar Rapids. If we want Veritas to be a church that raises up mature disciples, sends out everyday missionaries and glorifies God not just for a few decades right now, but Lord willing, until Jesus returns, it is vitally important that we intentionally and thoughtfully think about how we're going to pass on the faith to who comes next in church. There is urgency here. We cannot take the present faithfulness of God's people as a guarantee of a future faithfulness. We don't pass on the faith. We can't drift into complacency because we're orthodox, because we have a vibrant church that loves God right now. Because all those things were true of Israel and judges too. But the failure to pass on the faith led to a failure to preserve the faith. And we don't want that to be us. It reminds me a little bit when I used to watch my younger sister's track meets, specifically the relays. Because what I realized when I watched them was it doesn't matter how fast a team runs, how strong they are, how impressive they are if they botch the handoff. Teams that are in first can suddenly be coming last in the blink of an eye and even disqualified if they botch the handoff. It's so serious it can literally cost Olympic teams gold. See, here's what any good track coach does. He practices and emphasizes handoffs early and often. He incorporates it into drills and conditioning and he'll even practice it in the off season if needed. He'll simulate race conditions and practice it over and over, whatever he needs to do to make sure that handoff happens the way it's supposed to. Because the race is on the line now. Here's what we can learn from that. It does not matter how far and fast we run right now as a church, if we do not make the handoff to who's coming next. And see, history is full of churches, Christian institutions and faith filled families who have drifted over time until the faith was abandoned entirely. The church in Ephesus became a church that lost its first love within a matter of decades. More recently, Ivy League schools like Harvard were started by Puritans who would now shudder at the worldview being taught there. See, we care about being a next generation church because we care about making the handoff. And that means fighting to have young people in our church ahead of us, hands extended, ready to take the baton and keep running. But it also means fighting to have people in our church finishing the race who have run it well, who will not just drop the baton because their leg of the race is over, but instead give their time, their energy, their passion to make the best handoff possible for the possible, for the sake of our church's future. Being a next generation church, it means being a Psalm 78 church, a church that can echo ASAP. When he says this, he says, I will utter dark sayings from of old, things we have heard and known that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord and His might and the wonders he has done. Do you see how Asaph has incredible purpose in this psalm? He doesn't feel like his time has passed him by in the community of faith. He doesn't think his role is unimportant. He just knows what his role is to proclaim who God is and what he has done to those who are coming next. To make it his ambition to say, I want to make my life about raising up people who know the faith, know God, love him, and will preserve it when I am gone. So the race continues. And the question for us as a church is are we purposefully living our lives to pass on the faith to those coming after us in our homes, in our church, on our campuses? Do we have anyone in our life we are training up like others did for us? Are we practicing the handoff? And to speak to some of the older people in this church, let me tell you, the reality is this room has a lot of young people whose parents didn't raise them in the faith. People who came to faith in high school or college or early in their adulthood and haven't had anyone teach them how to live as a new creation? Will we as a church take seriously spiritually raising them up and parenting them? You don't have to have a degree in theology or have gone to Bible school to pass on what God has taught you in your life, about who he is, what others have taught you, and what following him looks like. Being a church who cares about the next generation is not an invitation to apathy or uselessness. It is an invitation, invitation to action and purpose that's going to require all of you because it's an invitation to proclaim and pass on the faith that was passed on to you. Why? So Israel's story does not become our story so that the glory of God does not depart this church. There's one more reason I want to show you though, why we're called to be a next generation church. And to help you see it, I want to look at a chunk of Paul's letter to one of his pastoral apprentices named Titus. So flip all the way near to the end of your Bible, Titus 2. And as you're flipping there, want to point out a couple things about this book to you that's going to be important for where we're going. This is one of the three what you would call pastoral epistles or letters in the New Testament, along with first and second Timothy. And what makes this letter so unique, what makes the pastoral letter so unique is Paul wrote them to prepare his next generation of pastors, Timothy and Titus, to shepherd a healthy church. So if you want to know what a healthy church looks like, Timothy and Titus are the places to look. And here's what I find so interesting. Paul could have written about a million different things for Titus to know, but he seemed to think it was vitally important for Titus to get how younger and older believers should function together in the church. And Paul seemed to believe it was vital for the health of the church to coach older generations and people about what their role in the local church was. And this is the instruction he gives. Look with me in verse two, we're read the chunk of a whole chunk of it and then break it down. He says 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 slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good and so train the young women to love their husbands and children to be self controlled, pure, working at home, kind, submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self controlled. 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 an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. So much instruction packed into that passage. But for this morning, all I want to do is help you see the through line of Paul's instruction to older believers. First, his instructions to older men. They are all about displaying and exemplifying godly behavior and virtues. To younger men, Paul says, exemplify wisdom, dignity, self control, faithfulness, love, and if that's Paul's instruction to older men, his instruction to older women, quite similar. Display for younger women what it looks like to be a reverent, godly woman of Christ. Exemplify purity, care for your household, kindness, obedience to God's word. And then in verse seven, he ties all this together in one verse that is critical for us this morning. This is his charge to Titus and the other believers in the church. He says, show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works. I want to hone in on that word. The word model comes from the Greek word typos, and it most literally would refer to making a pattern or design for others to imitate. So Paul's key call to the older Christians in Titus congregation is this model the faith to the next generation so they can see godliness and actually imitate it. And that was deeply important because in the city and culture Titus Church was in, older people in their community did not naturally model godliness. Here's how one commentator puts it. He says Paul's instruction would help the older generations stand out in their immoral Cretan context. And Cretans were the people who lived in this city of Crete where Titus Church was. He goes on, the older people, their restricted movement, often resulting from advanced age, made older people susceptible to fill their days with pastimes like gossiping and drinking. That was the pagan, immoral, pleasure seeking context of Titus Church. And if you don't believe me, believe Paul when he says this. In Titus 1, he says one of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, cretans are all always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons, strong words. But then I love that Paul's like, if you want to know what I think, he says, this testimony is true. Pretty bold. Paul's like really saying how he feels about that culture. So Paul is looking at these people, this older culture, modeling sin and selfishness. And he's saying to the older believers in Titus's church, you need to model something else in the counterculture of the people of God. Do not be a model of your Cretan culture. Be a model of Christ. Because without you younger believers, they won't even know what godliness looks like. They need a model to see and imitate to keep walking the path of the Christian life. They will not get it outside of the church. They had better get it in the church and see. We all know there's certain things that are really hard to achieve if you don't have a model or pattern show of Hands. How many of you guys want to live in a house that was constructed without an architectural model before, beforehand? Anybody? No one? No. Brave people. How many of you want to drive a car that was engineered without starting from a model to follow? Right. You could go on. You know, though, for certain things, we need models because their purpose is to take something big, complex, invisible, and make it approachable, understandable, so you can actually see it and mold something into it. And in the same way, if new believers and if the next generation is going to grow into godliness and persevere in the faith, they need models of faith in the church to see, to understand and model their own life after and church. Paul's call is really relevant still to our church today because I don't think America in 2025 is much different than Crete. In a culture that encourages people as they age to live for retirement and then spend their time, money and energy on personal pleasure and leisure, we need godly older generations more than ever before. Hear me. We need patterns of godliness in this church. We need models of godliness in this church. This is the second reason we're a next generation church. Veritas, we're a next generation church because Christians mature in the faith by seeing models of the faith. This is how people are raised up to Christian maturity. People mature in the faith by seeing models of the faith. How will younger Christians and generations grow by seeing what this Christian maturity actually looks like. And veritas, the young people in this room need to see your godliness lived out in real lives, in real marriages, in real homes, in a real church and city. They need to see godliness lived out in actual human skin. They need to see godliness lived out in you. Your personal holiness has an effect on this church in the next generation. Your delight or lack of delight in God has an effect on this church and the next generation. Your faithful, visible obedience to God's word has an effect on this church and the next generation. Let me tell you guys, seeing models of godliness, it shapes people's faith. And I know that because it shaped my faith as a young person at this church. Give you just a few examples. I've been shaped to prioritize prayer more deeply because I see Carrie Tranthem praying faithfully every Sunday morning and Thursday night, Friday for students. I've been shaped to care more about the nations because I've seen Debbie Hopper faithfully come to global prayer and write down every prayer request that's shared there. I've been shaped to become a more patient and trusting sufferer because I've seen multiple older people in this church endure cancer diagnoses with joy and peace and patient trust in God, even when that cancer would eventually take their life. I've learned about what it looks like to pursue longevity in ministry and faithfulness in ministry. Because I've seen Richard Marceau faithfully lead in ministry for like 200 years at this point. It's incredible. I couldn't resist. See, I've become a more mature Christian during my time in this church, not just because I was taught godliness from older people in this church, though certainly that was true. It's because I've also caught godliness from older people in this church from seeing their wives modeled out what it looks like to actually walk with Jesus not for a year, but for decades. And we need both. We need people to pass on the faith and we need people to be patterns of the faith. So after looking at Judges two and Titus two, after anchoring ourselves for a little bit in two passages, I'm hopefully helping you see why God's Word calls us to be a next generation church. It's because passing on the faith is how we preserve the faith. And it's because people mature in the faith by seeing models of the faith. And you'll remember at the beginning of the sermon, I asked you to consider the idea that being part of a next generation church actually leads to purpose, not irrelevance. And after walking through these passages, we can understand why. It's because God's Word is calling us to something. If we are called to be a next generation church, here is what that means for your purpose here. Being a next generation church means laboring to pass on the faith and living as a model of the faith. Being a next generation church, it means laboring to pass on the faith to who is next and living as a model of the faith to who is next. That is an invitation to deep purpose and something worth your time and energy and passion, not just for a few years, but for your life. Now, I want to get practical with you for a couple minutes about what all of this means for you, whether you're part of an older generation, a generation in the middle, or the next generation. What is God's word calling you to this morning in light of His Word? I'm going to start with the older generations in this room and then work my way down. For the older generations in this room, people who are wondering, God, what do you have for me in this later season of my life? Here is God's call for you plant yourself as a pillar of faith in this church. Plant yourself as a pillar of faith. What do I mean by that? I get that language from a Christian named Mark Sayers where he describes older generations in the church as pillars who lift up and support the church just like a pillar lifts up and supports a building. It's really just another image for you to describe the types of people who give their later years to pass on and model the that fact faith they've been growing in for decades. Pillars of faith are people who have respect and influence because of their long term commitment to the faith. Pillars of faith are people who support and strengthen the local church through their spiritual wisdom and example that can only come through age. Pillars of faith are people that aren't always flashy and glamorous and noticed, but provide the essential support for a church to continue standing because they are the people that stand the culture and tone of the church and that is the vital role you play in this church. We need pillars of faith here at Veritas. People who use their later years not to drift or just coast, but to intentionally pass on the faith and model the faith they've learned. Now there's a few ways you can do that through our church, through like formally, you could sign up as a youth leader and be a godly model to kids from seventh grade all all the way up through their senior year, which would be an awesome way to be a consistent pillar of faith in someone's life. You can serve in our kids ministry, helping kids build the very foundation of their faith. But here's what I really want you to leave with or be encouraged with. The type of discipleship you can offer doesn't have to just be organized, formal and programatized. In fact, some of the sweetest ways you could be a pillar of faith in this church is through informal discipleship. That happens when you just have intentional eyes to see and care for the next generation. Could look like sitting at a table and choosing to sit with a few younger people in a Sunday morning class and stepping out of your comfort zone while you're taking the class together to display a love for God's word that you have. That's discipleship. It could look like in a couple weeks inviting a younger person into your home and helping them see how you still love your spouse and are faithful to them decades after getting married. Married. That's discipleship. It can look like teaching people how to engage on Sunday mornings by leading out on, standing and singing boldly when we worship. That's discipleship. It can look like being a faithful member of a church for decades in the highs and the lows, being committed to this people, even when it is messy, teaching people that we are called to be a commit a committed church for the long haul. That's discipleship. Simply fighting to be a visibly authentic, committed, ordinarily faithful Christian will create a pattern of faith that the younger generation is watching. Now, I know there's a lot of you in this room who might feel more caught in the middle. You're not retired, but you're not 20 anymore. You're in the middle of parenting your career. As you walk with Jesus, you're wondering what all of this means for you. And here's my challenge to you is to prepare to be a pillar of faith in the church. Are your current habits in your 30s and 40s forming you to be a person who can pass on and model the faith to the best of your ability? Are you becoming someone ready to disciple the people coming next? I can almost guarantee you there are some older people in this church who would tell you they have some regrets in this exact area. They let some of life pass them by. They maybe spent decades caring about the wrong thing. And while they would say 100% God has been faithful and redeemed, they wish they would have prepared to be a pillar of faith decades earlier. And they tell you not to make the same mistake or end up with the same regrets. And can you imagine what would happen if you slowly but intentionally became like Jesus more, more and more, year after year? And that what that would mean for you when you are at your older age? Like, what if you looked more like Jesus in your 50s than your 40s, 40s, your 60s, then your 50s and your 70s, then your 60s? What if in your old age you had prepared for decades to be a pillar of faith in the church? You find yourself in faithfully pouring into and raising up people. And what if our church played the long game and prepared for that Future here in 30 years? If all the 30, 40 and 50 year olds in this room, when they're 60, 70 and 80, have been slowly over time, prepared themselves to be pillars of faith here in this church, to pass on the faith and to model the faith, I think that we would be a church more ready to experience the awe and glory of God and to take that hand off, well, so if you're in these middle generations wondering what this has for you, my call to you is to prepare to be a pillar of faith in the church. Because we need more pillars of faith and finally, to the next generation who might feel like these passages from God's Word don't have anything to do with you, yet you got off easy. I have no apple. Let me tell you, these passages have everything to do with you. Because if my challenge to the older generations is to be a pillar of faith, if my challenge to the middle generations is to prepare to be a pillar of faith, my challenge to you is this. Pursue the pillars of faith that are in this church. Pursue them intentionally. Invest in the people in this church further along in their walk with Jesus than you. This doesn't have to be complicated. It could look like walking up to someone you know and saying, will you disciple me? Which is great. It could also be as simple as finding a person in this church you have some familiarity with and asking them the questions you have in your 20s about life and your walk with God that they have some answers to in their 60s could look like choosing to be brave in a couple weeks and eat a meal at someone's home and watching how they parent their children. It could look like a lot of different things. But intentionally pursue the pillars of faith in this church because they are the people you are called to model your faith after. Which leads me to one more thing I have to say to the younger generations in this room that I feel a burden about. Respect and listen and follow the older generations in this church more than whoever is popular and trendy online. Don't fall for the lie that trendy and popular and young equals wisdom. And the people you should respect and look up to are not 25 year old influencers on Instagram who have a platform. They're the 50 to 70 year olds in this room who know God deeply, have a thriving marriage, are living faithfully, and have weathered storm after storm in this life and have walked through them closer to God than when they started. Proverbs 16:31, very countercultural proverb tells us gray hair is a sign of God glory, not foolishness. Do you guys actually believe that? Do you take God at his word? Or have you bought the culture's lie that young equals relevant and old equals outdated? Because nothing could be further from the truth. You are missing out on so much if you do not have older generations in your life passing on the faith and modeling the faith to you. And I would love it if this was a church that stretched across generational lines where friendships, where people modeled godliness and caught godliness and had the faith passed on to them. I would love if this was a church where that happened and God's plan A for your spiritual growth is not finding a YouTube channel or podcast or pastor online that you like. It is being placed here in a multi generational church that cares about who's coming next and can guide you and help you towards the deeper godliness. Severitas. In light of all that we've considered and walked through this morning, I just want to leave you with one last thought to consider and ponder as you walk out these doors. And this is the question, what kind of legacy is worth living for and leaving behind? It's a question you need to ask and reckon with in your life. What kind of legacy is worth living for and leaving behind? The legacy of a good reputation, worldly success, passing on money to your family. The legacy of notoriety and respect. I want to end this morning by actually inviting you to a better legacy by telling you about a woman named Jerry Knowles and her story. So Jerry grew up wanting to be a missionary to China, but due to life circumstances, was never able to. So she decided to intentionally do something else. In her later years of life, she decided to have kids from her neighborhood over for what she called backyard Bible study, where she'd give kids Bibles and teach them simple truths about God's word. Now one day a kid showed up named Nick, who came from a Roman Catholic background but never had a personal saving relationship with Jesus and never really knew the gospel. Jerry gave Nick a Bible, pointed him to the Gospels, and through her influence as a pillar of faith, Nick came to know the Lord. And that what happened there is it started Nick on a different trajectory for his life, leading to him becoming a parent and raising five kids in the faith. Guys, that's a sign we're a part of a next generation church. I just want to say that's a good thing. We should rejoice when we hear babies cry. Amen. Come on, that's a good thing. That means that lord willing, in 50 years there will still be people at this church. After all, you other guys are dead and gone. Okay, so anyway, let me continue the story. All right, here's the thing. Nick came to faith, became a pastor through Jerry's influence. And here's where this story gets really sweet. Even though Jerry never got to be a missionary to China, God in his goodness made a way for her to serve China. Anyway, because Nick's oldest daughter, this person she poured his life into, Nick's oldest daughter ended up spending several years doing missions work in China. Her name is Katie. And the sweet part about this story is that she's actually My older sister and Nick's my dad. And that means the reason I am here this morning is because there's a woman I don't even know who decided to spend the later years of her life caring about the next generation, passing on the faith, being a model of the faith. And she has left behind a legacy of faith that, Lord willing, will stretch on for centuries in my family. And a legacy of faith that's changed people's entire eternities, including my own. And isn't that the type of legacy you want for your life? A legacy that doesn't have to do as much with your money or your name, but the souls of people who will live forever somewhere? The type of legacy that has to do with passing on nothing less than the eternal gospel of Christ. That is the power of God to salvation for all who are perishing. That's the kind of legacy worth living for and leaving behind. And I hope we are a church that fights for that kind of legacy, eager to pass on the faith, eager to model the faith, and eager to leave behind a legacy of faith for God's kingdom and God's glory. Amen. Amen. Pray with me, oh Lord. Judges 2, 10. There arose another generation that did not know the Lord and what he had done in Israel. I pray that those words could not be said of Veritas in 50 years. Then there arose another generation, Veritas, who did not know the Lord and the work he had done in this church. May that never be us. But Lord, if that's not going to be us, we are called to something here this morning. We are called to pass on the faith and to model the faith, Lord, to live intentionally as we grow to be pillars of faith and God, I pray for each generation in this room. For the older generations, would you give them the confidence that no matter how much of their life they feel like they have wasted, it is not too late to leave behind a legacy, Lord, that they can meet and pour into and be an example for young people here in this church and in their homes, Lord, for the people in the middle, Lord, I pray you would help them remember that the legacy that's worth chasing is not a promotion or a title or a certain number in their bank account, but instead the legacy of souls, Lord, that they could leave behind and for the younger generations, God, would you protect them and protect us from this lie, Lord, that we are not to look up to older generations but fall for what is new and trendy? No, Lord. May we pursue those who are older than us, who have lived life under your son and know what it looks like to live the Christian life for decades. God, may we be a next generation church and all that that means. So that the glory of God does not depart veritas, but that we raise up mature. Your disciples send out everyday missionaries and glorify you. Not for decades, but until you return. We love you and we ask this in your name. Amen.